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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686939">borrowed sunlight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RorschachIris/pseuds/RorschachIris'>RorschachIris</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Based on a Chinese myth, But in my head I’m picturing most of the story being set in like the Burren in Ireland, Complete, F/M, Feat. baby Zorii, Fluff, General silliness that usually comes with mythology, I'm Serious, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Leia is Leia, Livin' on the moon, Mythology - Freeform, Night vs Day, Nightsisters repurposed, Not Beta Read, Okay this isn't going to make any astronomical or physical sense, Outcast!Kylo, Princess!Rey, Rampant and blatant disregard of all things science, Romance, Runaway!Rey, Scientific nonsense abounds, Soft Kylo Ren, The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, Umm I also don't know anything about herding cows, i dunno, sisters to the rescue, star-crossed lovers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:54:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26686939</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RorschachIris/pseuds/RorschachIris</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey has been a Nightsister, daughter of the Nightkeeper King, for as long as she can remember. But the seductive call of the light wears her down, year after year, growing steadily stronger. One day, she finally decides to act...</p><p>Mythical/fantasy AU, based loosely on the Chinese myth <em>The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I rediscovered this myth a little while ago, and decided to run with it. I was also attracted to the idea of writing something that had absolutely no basis in science and was a bit more fantastical/surreal, especially after working on <em>the black swan</em> for so long. Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey sits on the edge of the alabaster moonrock balcony of her father’s sprawling palace, her ash-white legs dangling carelessly over the inky void, her silver loom arching tall and silent behind her. She stares at the pristine blue-and-white marble that hangs suspended in the sky, low on the horizon, a thumbprint of vibrant beauty in the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey snaps out of her reverie and glances over her shoulder. Little Zorii has poked her face around the archway, and is giving Rey one of her comically motherly glares.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes?” Rey replies, grinning innocently.</p><p> </p><p>Zorii sighs. “Ventress asked me to check on you to make sure that you are still weaving. What should I tell her?”</p><p> </p><p>“The truth, I suppose.” Rey turns back to stare at Earth. “Don’t you ever miss it?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t remember it very well,” Zorii says quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Rey sighs. “That’s understandable. We received you when you were quite young.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii says tightly, “if you don’t start your weaving, I’m going to have to go get Ventress, or even Father. You know how he always warns me—”</p><p> </p><p>“—not to turn into wayward, rebellious Rey. I know, I know. I’m Father’s least favorite daughter, as he never ceases to remind me,” Rey grumbles, her mood souring immediately. She turns her back on her sister and stares up at Earth, her longing for the distant world only intensifying.</p><p> </p><p>Her sister remains silent for a long moment. Then, Rey hears the soft, hesitant pitter-patter of feet not yet used to the moon’s surface, and Zorii sits down quietly next to her. The two girls sit in the inky shadow, well out of the path of the sun’s light, and stare wordlessly at the distant world from which they both came.</p><p> </p><p>“Do <em> you </em>remember anything?” Zorii finally asks in a small, contrite voice.</p><p> </p><p>“Images,” Rey says absently as she thinks. “Sunlight, I think. A woman’s face…”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s already more than I can manage to remember.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wonder what it’s like to watch the sun rise every morning, and to watch it set every evening. I’d give anything to feel its light on my face, just once.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii says warningly, “you know Father’s rules.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, yes,” Rey grouses. “Not a single hair on our heads can be touched by sunlight. I know his rules well enough, Zorii. I just…”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Zorii says, grinning a small grin. “Ventress always tells me that Father’s rules aren’t without reason. We have a duty to perform, and if the sun claims even one of us, the delicate balance will be overthrown. The stars could be snuffed out entirely. The people of Earth who depend on the stars would be lost.”</p><p> </p><p>“No one knows that for sure. Perhaps I should test the theory,” Rey muses, half-teasingly.</p><p> </p><p>Little Zorii gasps, her eyes widening. “Rey!” She scolds. “You wouldn’t dare!”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry,” Rey laughs, mussing the youngest Nightsister’s hair with affection. “I wouldn’t do such a thing. Ventress and Phasma would kill me, to say nothing of Father.”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii nods, still peering skeptically at her older sister. Rey realizes as she examines the girl’s face that Zorii’s eyes are still tinged with a pale jade green, and her skin is still a few shades darker than the sun-drenched surface of the moon; the touch of the sun has not yet been entirely purged from the girl’s body. Rey’s skin had turned bone-white and her eyes a glassy gray long ago, after millennia of not stepping into the sun’s light.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you remember from Earth?” Rey asks Zorii quietly.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii sighs. “You really should get back to weaving starlight. I can’t keep Ventress off your back forever.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey puffs a disappointed breath. “Yeah. Sorry, I’ll get on it.”</p><p> </p><p>She heaves herself lightly to her feet from the ledge and skims along the floor, her filmy white dress flowing weightlessly and her bare feet silent against the moonrock, and seats herself at her loom. Zorii twists around from her perch on the balcony and watches as Rey begins to call wisps of sunlight to her fingertips to thread her loom. Presently, Zorii, satisfied, rises from the edge of the balcony and retreats back into the cool, silent castle.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Rey,” she says before disappearing into the darkness, “don’t forget that we’re moving to another part of the palace tomorrow. The light is waxing, and we need to keep out of its path, like Father says.”</p><p> </p><p>“Right, I almost forgot. Thank you, Zorii.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey watches her sister’s retreating back, the black Nightsister mark—a seven-pointed star—peeking just barely over the neckline of Zorii’s white shift, before turning and fixing her eyes on the distant globe of alluring white-and-blue as starlight begins to unspool from her loom and flutter out into the cold void.</p><p> </p><p>For almost as long as Rey can remember, she’s been a Nightsister, daughter of the Nightkeeper King. Thousands of years ago, when she was an infant, her parents had given her up as part of a ritual sacrifice to the Nightkeeper King, who, along with her older Nightsisters, Ventress, Phasma, and Bazine, had descended in the dead of night to untie her from the altar and bear her up to the lunar palace. Mere centuries ago, she had descended back down to Earth for the first time since she was sacrificed to accompany her father and sisters in retrieving an infant Zorii, who was sacrificed in a similar fashion.</p><p> </p><p>Rey had never seen another child before, and, fascinated with little Zorii’s olive skin and her vibrant green eyes and her chubby little hands and feet, was more than happy to take charge of caring for the child. She kept Zorii well-fed and out of the sun’s way, snatched Zorii up whenever she toddled too close to a loom, and cooed to Zorii whenever the child grew cross.</p><p> </p><p>Now—oh! how the tables have turned. Rey smiles to herself as she imagines Zorii’s somber little face and precocious manner, her girlish body still not quite mature enough to fill out Rey’s hand-me-downs just yet. Just barely old enough to handle a loom, and already the Nightkeeper King’s favorite daughter. Within a few hundred years, Zorii, too, would have ash-white skin and gray eyes; she, too, would lose what little color the sun had bestowed upon her. Her transformation into a Nightsister would be complete.</p><p> </p><p>Something in Rey mourns at the thought. She spins starlight with deft hands, and she stares at Earth, and she thinks.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>This is it.</p><p> </p><p>Rey stands at the edge of the balcony that spills out from her chambers, gazing at Earth where it hangs, distant and low and alluringly vibrant, in the sky. Her sisters are in their respective chambers, preparing to move from their current accommodations to another section of the planet, one that remains cloaked in darkness as the sunlight creeps across the surface of the moon.</p><p> </p><p>On this remote rock, things move with a deliberate, almost regal slowness; nothing can force the Nightkeeper King or his daughters to hurry in anything that they do. Rey is often chastised for rushing to finish her weaving, or running from room to room.</p><p> </p><p>“It is unbecoming of a Nightsister,” Father always says, his craterous, time-ravaged face wrinkling further with displeasure, “to rush from one thing to the next, like a mindless mortal whose days are numbered.”</p><p> </p><p><em> Well</em>, Rey thinks defiantly to herself. If she manages to succeed, perhaps her success will teach Father not to undervalue the ways of mortals.</p><p> </p><p>Speaking of success… Rey shifts from foot to foot. No one has ever attempted this before, and she has no idea what to expect once she leaves the safety of the shadows. Will she burn to a crisp in the light of the sun? Will she be thrown back by an invisible force that divides the light from the dark? Is there such a force?</p><p> </p><p>She takes one last look behind her, at the palace that sprawls across the moon’s surface and threads through its crust, the prison that has held her for millennia. She thinks of the idea that seeded in her heart the moment she set eyes on Earth from afar, the idea that slowly sprouted from an occasionally-flirted-with fancy into a temptation that now rages daily within her, an itch that has finally become intolerable.</p><p> </p><p>She asks herself, once again, whether she’s willing to risk everything to leave this place.</p><p> </p><p>Her soul rears its head and roars.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey?”</p><p> </p><p>Her head snaps around, and she stares, wide-eyed, at Bazine, who has appeared on the balcony of the neighboring chambers. Bazine is the only Nightsister whose skin has darkened to black instead of paling to white; her eyes are pools of obsidian, and the Nightsister’s brand on the nape of her neck is bright silver. When Rey was an infant, it was Bazine who’d taken care of her; when Rey was old enough to handle a loom, it was Bazine who’d trained her.</p><p> </p><p>Bazine, who now stands on her own neighboring balcony, watching Rey. Bazine, whose dark eyes are widening with realization.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey—”</p><p> </p><p>Rey turns, takes two running steps, and flings herself off the balcony.</p><p> </p><p>She falls for what feels like ages. When she finally hits the dusty surface of the moon below, she falls onto her side and rolls for a distance, unprepared for the impact. When she manages to get back to her feet, she’s covered in a thin layer of pale dust; she rubs futilely at her eyes before squinting up at the balcony from which she’d thrown herself. It seems to loom so far in the distance, almost impossible to see in the darkness. She can’t see Bazine, of course, but the Nightsister has probably retreated back into the palace to inform the King.</p><p> </p><p>Rey turns, disoriented; she takes a moment to find Earth, and points her bare feet in its direction, disturbing the moondust. She hears a sound rise from the palace behind her—a distant, rumbling sound, something like an earthquake, or perhaps a chorus of bells; she isn’t sure which.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t wait to find out.</p><p> </p><p>Taking a deep breath, she sets off running, ignoring as best she can the weakness of her legs and lungs, the pressure building steadily in her chest, the way her teeth rattle in her head with every step. Slowly, too slowly, the Earth grows nearer and nearer.</p><p> </p><p>Before her, the shadow line of the moon draws steadily closer, and before she knows it, she’s standing at the powdery border between dark and light. She screeches to a stop, her adrenaline-fueled courage suddenly giving way to fear.</p><p> </p><p>Ventress, the oldest of the Nightsisters, once returned from a years-long confrontation against the Skywalkers with her hair burned away and the scorch marks of the sun webbing across her scalp, her back. It took centuries for the skin to heal, and now, she can't even look at the weakly-sunlit surface of the moon without crying out in pain.</p><p> </p><p>Rey has no idea what will happen when she touches the sun's light.</p><p> </p><p>The rumbling behind her grows louder. She imagines Father’s eyes glowing bright gold from under the hood of his thick black robes; his eyes always glow when he’s truly furious. She sucks in a breath, edges closer to the line.</p><p> </p><p>She braces herself and pokes a big toe over into the light.</p><p> </p><p>A slight tingle of warmth. But no burning sensation, no spontaneous combustion into flames, no invisible repellent force.</p><p> </p><p>She edges her entire foot into the light, amazed at how much of her foot she can <em> see</em>. Still nothing unpleasant, as far as she can tell, so she half-stumbles, half-tiptoes entirely into the light.</p><p> </p><p>The rumbling sound is growing louder still, and she really can’t linger anymore, but it’s impossible to resist the temptation to stare at her hands, her arms, every inch of her body that her eyes can reach. She examines her shorn fingernails, the greenish veins under the tender skin of her wrists, the faint freckles scattered across her shoulders, the fine hairs that cover her arms and legs. Every wrinkle, every pore, every mole is suddenly frighteningly, gloriously visible.</p><p> </p><p>She gathers up her white shift dress and examines the material in the bright light, following with fascination the woven pattern of the wispy fabric.</p><p> </p><p>The ground begins to tremble, and she realizes that she really needs to keep going. She gathers up her skirts in one hand, hiking the fabric out of the way of her legs, and continues running.</p><p> </p><p>Slowly, the Earth rises over her head; and when, finally, she’s convinced that she’s run as close to Earth as she can, she takes a deep breath and launches herself off the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. Her momentum is a bit off, and she spins in the air; Earth dips in and out of her vision, and the sensation does strange things to Rey’s head. She tries closing her eyes, but that somehow makes the sensation even worse.</p><p> </p><p>Just as she doesn’t think she can take any more of the spinning, something invisible takes ahold of her flailing limbs and straightens her trajectory, smoothing her arms down to her sides and holding her legs straight, molding her from a tumbling piece of space rock into a comet. The pressure in her chest builds steadily, growing stronger and stronger, until she can barely breathe.</p><p> </p><p>As she gasps and wheezes, she chances a glance over her shoulder and watches as the brightly-lit surface of the moon from which she’d launched herself recedes rapidly into the distance. She turns her gaze back to what lies before her, and watches as Earth hurtles closer and closer toward her, faster than she can process.</p><p> </p><p>As the Earth grows before her eyes, she’s able to make out patches of green and sandy brown in the midst of the blue and white; closer still, and she’s able to see white-capped wrinkles that cut through the patches of color, gradations of brick-red and dark gray, spots of dark green in swaths of lighter yellowish-sage; and the patches of jewellike blue morph into complex webs of ceruleans and cobalts, clear, ebullient teals and muddled, brooding grays, edged in lace-like patterns of white. The white marble-like swirls she’d seen from the moon are shiftless, amorphous wisps, taking various forms, drifting into and out of abstract shapes.</p><p> </p><p>It’s all too much. It’s all too beautiful. Rey covers her tear-filled eyes, overwhelmed by the sight; she tries peeking through her fingers, immediately regretting hiding from such a sight, only to find herself overwhelmed afresh.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever force had corrected her wild, uncontrolled launch and guided her to Earth begins to pull on her slightly, dampening her speed little by little, guiding her into the darkened hemisphere of the Earth. She breaks through the layer of white wispy masses, and air rushes into her lungs, almost making her choke.</p><p> </p><p>Her skin is prickled first by an almost unbearable cold, and then, as the night air closes in around her, and as fields of rolling emerald and dark, shimmering surfaces of water appear before her, the warmth of the night, with traces of the sun’s heat whispering along the ground, between blades of grass, rustling between tree branches, envelopes her in its embrace, welcoming her home.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Poor Kylo is not ready for what's in store for him...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kylo wakes before the sun rises, as has been the norm for the years of his exile. Chewie, a small, brown, aging dog of unclear species, upon sensing that Kylo is awake, hikes his front paws up onto Kylo’s chest and lets out a whispered “rrf” by way of salutation.</p><p> </p><p>“’Morning,” Kylo mumbles as he gently pushes the rainwater-stained paws off of his chest and rolls out of his straw mattress onto the dirt floor.</p><p> </p><p>He washes himself quickly with river-drawn water, forces a few strips of dried salt beef down for breakfast, and stands outside his door to watch as the sun begins to rise.</p><p> </p><p>As it does every morning, the sight of the dawn elicits conflicting feelings for Kylo. It reminds him of home. It reminds him of wrongs committed, irrevocable words exchanged in the heat of anger, misunderstandings that ran years deep. And it reminds him of how the only home he’s known was never <em> really </em>a home to him, in the end.</p><p> </p><p>And as he does every morning, he turns his back on the sunrise and strides quickly to the fenced-in area abutting his hut, bending his thoughts away from home and towards the small herd of cows under his charge.</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t see her immediately.</p><p> </p><p>The scant handful of cows that stand huddled together in the wet morning chill ignore Kylo’s arrival for the most part, except for the recent-born calf, who turns its head towards him and flicks its ears, watching silently. Kylo does wonder, for a moment, why the herd is huddled away from their usual spot in the lean-to under the lone tree, but he doesn’t think too much about it. Perhaps the moisture from last night’s rain is too heavy in the wooden shack.</p><p> </p><p>He swings easily over the fence and meanders over to the lean-to to check on the supply of straw, the water level in the trough—</p><p> </p><p>—and very nearly trips headlong into the mud.</p><p> </p><p>He rubs furiously at his eyes, and steps as quietly up to the lean-to as he can manage, not quite believing what he’s seeing. Someone is lying in the damp straw, curled up into a tight ball, swathed in a filmy white fabric. For a moment, the fabric seems to give an unearthly glow, twinkling in the dewy morning like starlight; but Kylo blinks, and the magic vanishes, and it’s just threadbare white cloth, strewn with straw.</p><p> </p><p>The figure is mostly shrouded from view by the dimness of the lean-to, and it takes Kylo a few more moments to make out the details. Small and slender, with tousled long dark hair and incredibly pale skin. Bare, dirt-covered feet, bony wrists and ankles.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo takes another step closer, and the figure shifts, sighing; still asleep, thank goodness. If this is another prank by one of the teenagers from the village, he’s going to have a word with—</p><p> </p><p>—he reaches out and gently pushes aside some of the straw, and finds himself staring at the sleeping face of a young woman.</p><p> </p><p>He sits back on his heels. She’s not immediately recognizable; he doesn’t know of any young women from the village who have such dark hair, or such pale skin, seemingly untouched by the sun. But there isn’t much in the way of civilization here in this corner of the world; besides the village on the outskirts of which he lives, there probably isn’t another human soul for tens of miles.</p><p> </p><p>So how did this stranger find her way to his lean-to?</p><p> </p><p>Chewie clambers into the paddock with his usual gracelessness, snuffles at the herd for a moment, and sidles up next to Kylo, tail wagging, looking vaguely proud of himself.</p><p> </p><p>“You,” Kylo sighs, pointing at his dog, “are a <em> terrible </em>guard dog.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rrf.”</p><p> </p><p>Dog and master sit quietly for a moment, before Kylo heaves another sigh and reaches over to nudge gently at the sleeping woman’s arm.</p><p> </p><p>“M—... Uh… Miss?”</p><p> </p><p>The woman turns her face away from him, drawing away from his touch, grumbling in her sleep. Kylo nudges her harder.</p><p> </p><p>“Miss, are you all right?”</p><p> </p><p>Pale gray eyes, the color of the lake’s surface on a misty summer morning, snap open and fix on Kylo, unblinking. Slowly, the woman unfolds herself from her fetal position and edges up against the wall of the lean-to, pressing away from him, immediately wary.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right,” Kylo says, drawing back with his hands raised. “I won’t hurt you.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes flicker from his face to Chewie, who sits expectantly in the mud, tail wagging, tongue lolling from his happily-agape mouth. She smiles then, albeit warily; obviously, she’d made friends with the deplorable guard dog sometime last night.</p><p> </p><p>“Chewie won’t hurt you, either,” Kylo assures her nonetheless, reaching over with one hand to gently push Chewie back. The dog wriggles with impatience, but obediently skitters back a few steps.</p><p> </p><p>She watches Chewie retreat, and returns her gaze back to Kylo’s face. She seems to study him, her fear and wariness slowly being overridden by her curiosity. Her eyes trace over his long black mane of hair, his dark eyes, and down his long nose to his wide mouth, his strong slanted jaw. She seems neither pleased nor displeased with what she sees; only curious.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo finds it highly disconcerting.</p><p> </p><p>“Um,” Kylo manages. “Who are you? Do you need help?”</p><p> </p><p>She opens her mouth hesitantly.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I…” She seems startled at the sound of her own voice, but she continues on. “Um, could you kindly tell me...where I am?”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh,” Kylo stutters, caught off guard by her question. “You’re just outside the village of Nymeve, in the region of Takodana.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nymeve,” she repeats, as though committing the name to memory. “Takodana.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you all right?” Kylo repeats. “I don’t find people sleeping in my lean-to every day.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, no, I—I mean, yes, I’m all right. I just—” She scrambles into action, apparently embarrassed at having been caught on someone’s property. “It’s just that the, um, the creatures that were here didn’t seem to mind my presence, and I was tired…”</p><p> </p><p>She all but tumbles out of the lean-to and shoots to her feet, only to collapse immediately.</p><p> </p><p>“Whoa,” Kylo exclaims as he catches her on her way down. “Are you hurt? When did you last eat?”</p><p> </p><p>“I...I’m not sure,” she mutters, dazed.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo shifts as gently as he can until her crumpled, feather-light form is draped a bit more comfortably in his arms; he realizes that her skin and dress are, despite the dampness of the lean-to, entirely dry, spotless and down-soft. She turns her head to the side and rubs an elegant hand over her face, and Kylo glimpses a long stretch of pale, lithe neck, skin as tender and flawless as a newborn’s, and a scattering of freckles strewn across her shoulders and the bridge of her fine-tipped nose. He swallows thickly, unprepared for the visceral impact of the sight, and looks away.</p><p> </p><p>“Can I offer you something to eat, then?” He mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“Mm,” she mumbles, clearly still lightheaded. “You mean...food?”</p><p> </p><p><em> Skies. </em>Kylo huffs a half-resigned, half-anxious sigh as he gets to his feet, hefting the stranger up easily in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>A spear of sunlight lances across her face as he lifts her up from the ground, and she starts, as though the sun's touch is a physical blow; she turns her wide, glass-like eyes towards the light, and immediately hisses at its brightness, raising a hand to shield her eyes. Even so, she peeks out of the cracks between her fingers and looks at the sun for as long as she can manage, as though she’s never seen it before. And even as she lies still in Kylo’s arms, he feels something bolt through her—a ripple of something vital and warm, almost as though a light within her is stoked to life by the sun.</p><p> </p><p>She strains slightly against Kylo’s arms, her dark silky hair unfurling down her back and his arm, and he has to readjust his hold on her—and he notices, for the first time, just how transparent her scrap of a dress is.</p><p> </p><p>He averts his eyes quickly.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you like to come in?” He demands through gritted teeth.</p><p> </p><p>She glances at the wood-and-mud wall of the hut, apparently finally realizing that the cow paddock adjoins his hut, and nods wordlessly.</p><p> </p><p>“All right,” Kylo mutters. He nudges open the lock on the fence, shoves against it to close it, barks an order at Chewie to stay and keep watch, and marches back into his hut.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>He sets her down on his mattress, wrapping his blanket around her—partly in response to her slight shivering, and partly to cover her slender body from his sight. She watches with unblinking eyes as he retrieves a few strips of salt beef from his store, and hesitantly takes the food when he wordlessly hands it to her.</p><p> </p><p>As he busies himself, taking out an extra set of blankets and rooting about his clothes for a clean shirt and trousers that she might borrow, he watches surreptitiously from the corner of his eye as she turns the salt beef over and over in her hands, clearly confused by it.</p><p> </p><p>He reaches into the barrel where the salt beef had come from, plucks out another piece for himself, and tears off a chunk of it with his teeth, chewing nonchalantly as he crosses back to his chest of clothing. She watches as he chews, before gingerly bringing the meat to her mouth and tearing off a small chunk. He listens with satisfaction as her hesitant, curious chews become more assured and enthusiastic. By the time he’s found a suitable shirt and trousers, she’s licking the remaining salt from her fingers.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” he grunts, dropping into a squat by the mattress and handing her the clothing. “Change into these. They’ll keep you warm, better than that scrap you’re wearing will.”</p><p> </p><p>“All right,” she says hesitantly, accepting the clothing. “Thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>Before he’s had a chance to so much as stand back up, she’s throwing aside the blankets and stripping off her shift.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait!” He yelps, scrambling back from her, raising a hand to block the sight of her nakedness. “You can’t just—can you wait until I’m looking away!?”</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” She asks, frowning, not moving to cover herself; she twists around to examine her skin. “Is there something on my body?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Where did this girl come from? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the point,” Kylo grits out, still averting his eyes. “There <em> isn't </em> anything on your body. I don’t know how things are done wherever you come from, but it’s not appropriate to just strip naked in front of other people.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh.” She brings the clothes to her chest, suddenly ashamed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right,” Kylo snaps. “Just—tell me when you’re dressed.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a long, frantic rustle of cloth. It occurs to Kylo that she might be unfamiliar with his clothing, but he doesn’t take the chance to peek, and waits patiently. When she clears her throat uncertainly, he raises his eyes slowly, and takes in the backwards shirt, the too-large trousers rolled up at the ankles.</p><p> </p><p>“Is this right?” She asks.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo sighs. “Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Okay.” She folds herself back into the mattress and gathers his blanket around her. “Thank you for the...the coverings. Where should I put my dress?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um,” Kylo looks around distractedly. “You can hang it on that hook on the wall, if you’d like to keep it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” she repeats as she wraps his blanket around herself for good measure and gets up to hang her dress on the hook he’d pointed out. She quickly retreats to the mattress again, gathering her knees to her chest before wrapping herself back up in the blanket, and she turns that unearthly gaze back on him, staring unabashedly. He watches as her expression shifts restlessly between doe-like wariness and fae-like intrigue, and looks away.</p><p> </p><p>“Um,” Kylo says, swallowing. “I have to go out to tend to my cows.”</p><p> </p><p>“Cows?”</p><p> </p><p>“The creatures you slept beside last night.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. ‘Cows.’”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Kylo says, rising to his feet. “Cows. I have to let them out into the common land to graze. They’re likely eager to be milked, too.”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes widen at his words; clearly, she has no idea what he’s talking about. He sighs.</p><p> </p><p>“Will you be all right here, by yourself?” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>She chews fleetingly on her lip, and nods.</p><p> </p><p>“All right,” he mumbles. “I’ll be back in a few hours. There's fresh water in that bucket, and more salt beef in the barrel. Don’t let anyone in. And...try not to touch anything.”</p><p> </p><p>He spins on his heel, grabs his hat and his short whip, straps his long knife to his belt, and leaves.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>The sun hangs high overhead, beating down on Kylo through his threadbare shirt and well-worn cotton hat.</p><p> </p><p>Normally, the intense heat of the sun is not only painful in its own right, but is doubly so because of the constant reminder of his exile. But today, he hardly notices the heat, and he barely lingers on the memory of the disappointment on his mother’s face.</p><p> </p><p>Because of <em> her. </em></p><p> </p><p>Kylo chose this specific region because of the promise of solitude; he chose to live out his prolonged years in a place where he could establish a simple livelihood, a straightforward routine, a solitary existence. Because in the end, try as he might to socialize and get along with other people, he knows that, for outcasts like him, peace and contentment can only be found in his own company.</p><p> </p><p>He’d spent millennia wandering from region to region, huddled in a hut or wandering restlessly over the limestone and shale uplands and the scruffy lowland heath and along the banks of trickling rivers and pensive lakes, threading his way through forests, slipping and sliding over endless shifting sand dunes, avoiding villages and towns and people in general for long stretches of time. Waiting for the wounds to scar over, for his mind to cauterize the memories and the emotions.</p><p> </p><p>The only disruption to his slow process of self-burial and self-renewal was the sudden arrival of Han’s long-lost hound, Chewie, who’d appeared at the door of Kylo's hut one stormy evening, wet and shivering and quiet… But Chewie turned out to be a docile creature and a tolerable, if sometimes ill-trained, companion.</p><p> </p><p>And Kylo had begun to even look forward to a future full of this life, of quiet, sprawling days spent guiding his tiny herd of cows over the limestone and the heath, from one sweet patch of grass to another, lounging in the meager shade of low-crouching trees and watching as the colors of the land changed with the seasons.</p><p> </p><p><em> She </em> is a drastic—cataclysmic, even—disruption in his routine. <em> She </em>cannot stay.</p><p> </p><p>He glowers to himself at the thought of his houseguest. She obviously doesn’t know the area, and is probably too weak even for the short journey to Nymeve; it would be unkind of him to kick her out of his home. But the thought of having another person in his haven of solitude needles him.</p><p> </p><p>He whacks frustratedly at a tuft of tall-growing grass, and is rewarded with a doleful glare from one of his herd; semi-repentant, he plops down under the shade of a squat tree.</p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t help, of course, that the stranger’s arrival has reminded him of just how dull his solitudinous existence has really been; her presence reminds him of the scraps of joy he’d managed to find in the company of his former family and friends all those lifetimes ago, the spots of light amid the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a sort of fascinating duality to her; her manner and appearance are cool and pale, tempered and aloofly elegant—as far from the people of the sun as one could get. Even in sleep, her limbs were tucked away neatly, her dark lashes unmoving against the paleness of her cheeks, like the cold, elegant repose of the moon.</p><p> </p><p>Despite that, however, he remembers the jolt of warmth that had coursed through her the moment her skin was touched by the sun’s light. It hadn’t been a thoughtless, fleeting appreciation of the sunrise; it had been bone-deep, soul-deep—an awakening, a blossoming.</p><p> </p><p>In fact, it was strikingly similar to the way a Skywalker wakes under the touch of the sun.</p><p> </p><p>And <em> that </em> is intriguing.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo runs a hand agitatedly through his hair. There’s a part of him that shrinks away from the stranger’s contradictions, her intoxicatingly simultaneous warmth and coldness, her glass-like eyes and slender hands; and there’s another part of him that is hopelessly drawn towards her.</p><p> </p><p>He knows what it’s like to be torn between two different sides of oneself… Perhaps she does too.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo shoots to his feet then, and paces around the cows, careful to give them a wide berth; Chewie tags along, lagging a few steps, loping happily through the grass and over the stone.</p><p> </p><p>Here he is, getting caught up in fantasies and imposing all sorts of assumptions on a complete stranger, and he doesn’t even know the first thing about her, not even her name.</p><p> </p><p>He resolves to rein in his wandering thoughts, to temper his confused expectations, to not abandon his well-worn solitude so quickly.</p><p> </p><p>He resolves to at least start with asking her for her name.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” she responds, her smile like the sun peeking through clouds. “My name is Rey. What’s yours?”</p><p> </p><p>He hesitates for a moment. “Kylo,” he finally mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“Kylo,” she repeats, storing it alongside all the other things she’s learned so far—cows, milk, clouds, Nymeve, Takodana, dog, Chewie. Despite the pleasant heat of the early evening, she’s still wrapped snugly in his blanket, and every once in a while, she suppresses the slightest of shivers. But the smile that dawns steadily on her face gives no indication of her discomfort.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen, um,” Kylo says falteringly as he sinks down on the dirt floor of his hut; Rey immediately shuffles over to one end of his mattress, gesturing for him to sit on the other end, and he hesitantly complies.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen,” he says again, folding his long limbs awkwardly on his too-small mattress, “I… It would be helpful to know who you are. Are you from nearby? Do you have people looking for you?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey’s smile falters, and her eyes slide away from his.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m...not from around here,” she says quietly. “I arrived last night, while it was still dark. Someone is probably looking for me, but…”</p><p> </p><p>“But?”</p><p> </p><p>“...but I don’t want to be found.”</p><p> </p><p><em> Okay. </em> “Do you have anyone who can take you in? Family, friends?”</p><p> </p><p>She shakes her head no.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo hesitates, unsure of what to make of her downcast manner. “Anyplace you can go to? Any towns where they might take you in?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not from Takodana, are you?”</p><p> </p><p>“...No.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you from this side of the ocean?”</p><p> </p><p>“...”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you from this <em> world?</em>”</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes snap up to his, but she doesn’t respond.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo sighs. “All right. I won’t make you divulge your secrets. But you’re obviously in no condition to continue traveling, so you can stay here until you regain your strength.”</p><p> </p><p>Her smile creeps back onto her face, although her eyes are a bit more distanced than before. “Thank you for your hospitality. I’m very grateful.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well,” Kylo grunts, barely audibly, eyeing her warily.</p><p> </p><p>He notices something then, and leans slightly closer, examining her face. She shrinks back, eyes wide at his sudden scrutiny.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” She asks, raising her hands to her face. “Is… Do I have something on my face?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Kylo says. “No, I just…”</p><p> </p><p>He moves slightly closer, and, for a moment, her eyes have the subtlest of a tinge of hazel to them, and the skin of her face is just the slightest bit less translucently blue-pale, and the hair framing her face glints ever so slightly with some of the sun’s golden light.</p><p> </p><p>Then he blinks, and the effect is gone; she’s once again gray-eyed, dark-haired, impossibly pale, staring at him with frightened eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry,” he immediately says, backing away. “I just…”</p><p> </p><p>He turns away.</p><p> </p><p>“Just what?” She presses.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing,” he says. “Were you sitting by the door all day?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Watching the sun?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s too bright to look at directly… But yes, I was following the sun.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo finds himself staring at her again, and averts his eyes, impatient with himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you hungry?” He demands, more gruffly than he intended.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she lies.</p><p> </p><p>“Thirsty? Cold?”</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>He stares at her for a moment, grunts, and turns away. He rummages about the hut, and when he returns to her, he’s holding another strip of salt beef and a rough-hewn cup full of river water, and a threadbare woolen wrap that will likely do very little; she accepts the humble meal and the pathetic covering with a smile that rivals the sun.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Later that night, after Kylo ensures that Chewie is stationed by the paddock, he covers the coals in the fire pit and washes himself briefly with a wet cloth. Then, he realizes that there is one more detail that they have yet to arrange.</p><p> </p><p>Rey is perched on the edge of the straw mattress, the only surface in the hut that is remotely comfortable enough to sleep on; the ground is a thin layer of dirt, scattered over slabs of limestone.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I can sleep on the ground, really. It’s no trouble at all.”</p><p> </p><p>“If you think I’m going to let my first ever houseguest sleep on the ground, you’re sorely mistaken,” Kylo deadpans. “I’m taking the ground.”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no reason why we can’t share the mattress,” Rey says, gesturing towards the space next to her. “I mean, it might be a tight fit, but I’m sure we’d manage—what is it?”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo can feel his face reddening. Her face, on the other hand, remains pale as the moon, her eyes wide and innocent.</p><p> </p><p>“Sharing a bed is…” He clears his throat. “I mean, again, I don’t know how you do things where you come from, but for me, sharing a bed is...a rather...intimate thing to do.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Rey says, looking slightly taken aback. “I see.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo clears his throat again, sitting on the ground and staring forlornly at the dirt-covered rock for a moment, resolutely pushing all thoughts and fantasies of sharing his mattress with Rey from his mind.</p><p> </p><p>“But it must be so uncomfortable, to sleep on the ground,” Rey ponders, “and this mattress would certainly fit the both of us. It seems unsensible for one of us to sleep on the ground, just for the sake of propriety.”</p><p> </p><p>She gives him an earnest, innocent look—one that he is not able to return.</p><p> </p><p>“Does it bother you that much to share a mattress with me?” She murmurs, casting her eyes down.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Kylo says hurriedly. “I… That is, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind it at all. It’s just…”</p><p> </p><p>He trails off, furious at himself.</p><p> </p><p>“Why don’t we try it?” Rey presses, moving quickly to vacate half of the bed. “If it doesn’t work, then it doesn’t work. But if it does work, then neither of us will have to sleep on the ground,” she says, and her voice is so placating, her reasoning so sensible, that before Kylo knows it, he’s blowing out the candle and settling down on the mattress beside her, stiff as a board.</p><p> </p><p>He can almost hear her smile in the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>“Am I really your first ever houseguest?” She says after a long stretch of silence passes between them, during which Kylo doesn’t relax an inch of his body.</p><p> </p><p>He clears his throat. “Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m honored.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, well, my home isn’t much to speak of.”</p><p> </p><p>“I feel very welcome nonetheless,” she replies. “Thank you, really, for letting me stay here. I’m sorry to be such an imposition. If there’s anything I can do to repay you…”</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” Kylo grunts, shifting slightly, testing the boundaries of his half of the bumpy mattress.</p><p> </p><p>“Have you never shared a bed with anyone before?”</p><p> </p><p>“I have. Just not since I moved here.”</p><p> </p><p>“You haven’t always lived here?” She asks. Her voice is small and thin in the darkness, fragile and beautiful, like a flower growing through the cracks of the rocky upland.</p><p> </p><p>“I used to live in a place far from here,” Kylo says after a long pause. “In another life.”</p><p> </p><p>“In another life? How mysterious.”</p><p> </p><p>“What about you? Have you ever shared a bed? Or have you always wandered the heath and slept in peoples’ lean-tos?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey laughs. “I’ve shared a bed with some of my...my sisters. Last night was my first time sleeping in a lean-to.”</p><p> </p><p>“I get the sense that today was full of firsts for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mm.” She stifles a yawn. “You could say that.”</p><p> </p><p>“You won’t tell me anything about where you come from?” Kylo wheedles. “Not a single thing?”</p><p> </p><p>“I'm sorry.”</p><p> </p><p>“What about your sisters? Can you tell me anything about them?”</p><p> </p><p>She laughs again, but it’s a sleepy, half-hearted sound. “I think it’s best if you don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>He understands, he truly does. He has a world of secrets that he wants to keep from her for as long as he can. But the canyon of secrets that he senses sprawling between them sets him on edge, for some reason—makes him want to draw even further away from her, alluring as she is. He rolls onto his side, his back facing her, and closes his eyes, unsettled.</p><p> </p><p>But she mutters something incoherent, already half-asleep, and wriggles over the mattress until she finds him, and huddles gently against his shoulder blades, seeking the warmth of his body...and the cold hardness that had begun to form in him dissipates. He listens carefully as her breathing evens out, and concentrates on the soothing coolness of her hands, her bared legs, her feet. And, eventually, he drifts off into a deep, dreamless sleep.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It’s no trouble,” Kylo insists. “You must get tired of just sitting by the door, day in and day out.”</p><p> </p><p>“But I’m not able to walk very long distances yet; I’m afraid I wouldn’t last more than ten minutes. You’d have to carry me for the rest of the day.”</p><p> </p><p>“You weigh almost nothing, Rey. It wouldn’t be any trouble.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey scrunches up her face, clearly conflicted. She’s spent the last few days cooped up in the hut, staring longingly out at the open land, the vast expanses of rock slabs and patchy grass and cloud-dotted sky, thinking that Kylo wouldn’t notice. But somehow, even though he’s gone for most of the daylight hours, he seems to know about her longing for the outdoors, for the earth, for the sun and the breathtaking blue sky.</p><p> </p><p>“Trust me,” Kylo says, mildly amused at her expression. “It's no trouble. We'll move slow, and if you get tired, I'll carry you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rrf.”</p><p> </p><p>“Or Chewie will carry you.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey giggles, the bridge of her nose crinkling slightly. The hours spent under the sun have infused her skin, eyes, and hair with a feeble golden brown, bringing a shock of vitality to her smile, and throwing her dimples and freckles in stark, beautiful relief. Kylo watches her giggle delightedly at his half-hearted attempt at humor, and her mirth is a jolt of pure warmth down his spine.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” he says, rising to his feet and pushing his thoughts from his mind, “I’m heading out now. Last chance.”</p><p> </p><p>She looks up at him, her expression thoughtful. Then, she slowly rises to her feet. She folds the blanket perfunctorily and places it on the mattress before turning to him with uncertain eyes, his clothing hanging shapelessly from her shoulders and hips, her hair hanging heavy and silken down her back, her mouth curving into a slow smile.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Rey pads silently alongside Kylo, her feet encased in much-too-large sandals of cow hide to protect the delicate soles of her feet, all of her breath taken up by the immense difficulty of walking on her weakened legs, all of her breathless attention taken up by the uninterrupted arch of the sky and the bewitching warmth of the sun. She almost doesn’t notice when Kylo stops the herd at a patch of grass, and would have wandered on into the heath if Kylo hadn’t reached out to restrain her.</p><p> </p><p>He watches carefully as she leans against his arm, panting for breath, her cheeks slightly flushed and her hair like a banner of dark bronze in the wild moor wind. She turns from the sky to look at him, her eyes alight, her smile unbridled. Her hat, an old, floppy thing that Kylo had lent her, peels back from her face, straining in the wind; she battles with the brim and laughs whole-heartedly.</p><p> </p><p>“It's beautiful here,” she exclaims. “You're so lucky to see this every day.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he agrees, squinting against the sun at the land. “I suppose you're right.”</p><p> </p><p>“Also,” she says, a little breathlessly, “I think I’m done walking for the rest of the day.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s all right. I think you made it to fifteen minutes?”</p><p> </p><p>“Impressive, I’m sure,” Rey laughs as she plops down on the ground, stretching her legs happily before folding them. She turns her face to the sun, like a flower, and closes her eyes, feeling its alien heat caressing her face. Kylo looks down at her for a moment, smiling to himself, before meandering over to a tree and lowering himself into its shade. In the distance, Chewie pads at a leisurely pace around the cows, giving them a wide berth, snuffling happily in the grass.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo turns his head to watch Rey, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of the strange, unearthly girl, her skin practically glowing in the sunlight, her contented smile equally radiant. Watching her luxuriate in the sunlight is like watching a fish cut expertly through water, a bird execute a hair-raising dive in the air, a tree flower in the spring—entirely natural and even mundane, but at the same time beautiful, exultant, miraculous, something that can be observed but not imitated. Whereas the sun stings his skin and reminds him constantly of broken bonds and old scars, it seems to strengthen her and imbue her with life.</p><p> </p><p>Much like a Skywalker, he thinks, as he stares.</p><p> </p><p>As the cows begin to wander on to a closeby patch of grass, moving at a leisurely pace, Kylo picks himself up off the ground and rouses Rey from her trance. She glances up at him, eyelashes fluttering at the brightness of the sun, and stands up as well, adjusting her clothes as he turns away.</p><p> </p><p>She looks up at his broad back, his wavy raven hair, the subtle roll of his muscle-knotted shoulders easily visible under the threadbare, windblown cloth of his shirt. The first few days with him had been difficult; she couldn’t tell if her presence was welcome or troublesome. It took all of her patience and suspension of curiosity to give him the space he sometimes seemed to want, and it took almost all of her observational ability to begin to discern the muted, nuanced colors of his emotions. His presence is a warm, solid thing, but everything else about him—his mood, his thoughts, the shadows that occasionally cross his face—seem to shift and phase from day to day, hour to hour. She feels as though a conflict is constantly playing out within him, hidden in the darkness behind the mask that he presents to her; he remains aloof and unknowable, much like a Nightkeeper, or even the moon itself.</p><p> </p><p>It frustrates her. But it intrigues her as well, drawing her in.</p><p> </p><p>He bends awkwardly at his hips and his knees, holding his arms out, clearly inviting her to climb onto his back. She hesitates before slowly wrapping her arms around his neck, looping first one leg and then the other through his arms. He hoists her up with ease, mumbles something about how light she is, and strides quickly after the herd. </p><p> </p><p>She nestles her face against the juncture of his neck and shoulder, sighing, and basks in the warmth of the sun and of the man whose stolid presence and shifting colors and strong arms are beginning to feel like home.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>They arrive at a slender, winding freshwater river, in which Rey splashes about as Kylo waters the herd and collects a fresh bucket of water for his own use. He spends the rest of the day carrying Rey on his back, supporting her legs and ankles with one arm, and holding a sizeable amount of water with the other arm, and still manages to go without complaint, and Rey grudgingly acknowledges that the arrangement isn’t altogether a bad one. They seal the agreement; she’ll accompany him on his herding trips on foot for as long as she can, and he’ll carry her the rest of the way. </p><p> </p><p>She isn’t sure what he gets out of it. She doesn’t ask.</p><p> </p><p>That evening, she wolfs down three strips of salt beef, chugs more water than she probably should, eagerly accepts a wrinkled dark chunk of something sweet that Kylo calls a “dried plum” and a soft slab of something cream-colored and luxuriously fragrant that he calls “cheese,” and is snoring away the moment her head hits the mattress. </p><p> </p><p>Kylo rummages about for a while longer, checking on his stores of cheese and butter, making a note of his low stash of potatoes, and sluicing most of the dirt from his limbs and his face, before blowing out the candle and standing uncertainly next to his mattress for a moment. Finally, he kneels gently on the mattress and carefully scoops Rey up in his arms, depositing her on the interior half of the mattress. She sighs, rolls onto her side, and continues slumbering without missing a beat.</p><p> </p><p>He lowers himself slowly onto the mattress beside her, covers her slender body with his blanket, and lays on his side as well, gazing at her dreaming face as he slowly slips into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>At first, Rey isn’t sure what awakens her.</p><p> </p><p>She opens her eyes with a start, disoriented by the sudden dissolving of a strange dream, and blinks up at the ceiling, momentarily forgetting where she is. She turns her head and sees Kylo sleeping peaceably beside her, his breaths long and even.</p><p> </p><p>She sits up slowly, careful not to wake him. Her body has begun to grow strong from weeks of venturing out into the heath with Kylo, and her feet have grown sinuous and calloused; her limbs have darkened significantly to a peachy golden shade, which both terrifies and awes her; and when she examines her hair in the sunlight, she sees a spectrum of burnished golds, rich browns, and pale yellows. She isn't sure if these colors were bestowed upon her hair by the sun, or if they have always been there, flattened and hidden by darkness.</p><p> </p><p>Something is passing outside, skirting around the cows, the hut. There is no sound of footsteps, no voices; nothing indicates a foreign presence. But she can <em> feel </em> it.</p><p> </p><p>Clambering over Kylo slowly with carefully placed hands and feet, Rey feels every part of her body pulling taut as she approaches the door and peers outside.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn't see anything at first, but as she rounds the paddock and looks out across the heath, she sees a figure dressed in white starlight, standing stock-still, staring back at her. At first, for a wild moment, she thinks that she's staring at a specter of herself; but the figure begins advancing quickly towards her, and she blinks hard, and she realizes that it's Zorii.</p><p> </p><p>Her heart clenches with an unexpected ache, and she hikes up Kylo's old pants and takes off across the heath.</p><p> </p><p>Zorii meets her halfway, and with a low, strangled cry, the two sisters embrace each other.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii whimpers, trying to quiet her sobs. “I'm so glad I found you. I missed you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Rey coos, smoothing down Zorii’s hair, “I missed you too, dear sister.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii says after they finally pull apart, looking up at Rey with wide eyes that reflect the moon's light with unnerving clarity. Her expression takes on that motherly look of rebuke that Rey had always found amusing. “I'm so glad I'm the one who found you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You were looking for me?” Rey asks, incredulous.</p><p> </p><p>“All of the girls are. Even Ventress is looking, when the moon is hidden completely behind Earth. We've been canvassing the entire planet, taking turns every few nights. Father is furious, you must know that. He's utterly beside himself. If one of the others found you and took you back home, he would probably lock you deep in the moon's core and never let you out.”</p><p> </p><p>“But <em> you </em>found me,” Rey says. “What are you going to do?”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii looks down, then, and wrings her hands. Rey watches as the younger girl shuffles her feet uncomfortably, and she feels a shock of guilt at putting her sister in such a position.</p><p> </p><p>“I…” Zorii says, faltering, before literally stomping her foot. </p><p> </p><p>“Rey, what were you <em> thinking?  </em>You know that all of us are needed to make sure that the stars shine bright at night. Since you left, we’ve been doing our best to compensate, but even with our best efforts, the stars have been shining less brightly and disappearing erratically. Ship navigators and sojourners who rely on the constellations have been losing their way; farmers have been miscalculating the passage of the season and have lost entire crops; people who have gotten lost in woods and mountains and deserts and moors have strayed further and further away from their homes, unable to rely on the constellations.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey winces. “Zorii, I’m sorry—” </p><p> </p><p>“But nevermind all that,” Zorii all but cries. “How could you leave us, just like that?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey stares at her sister, aghast. When she had left the moon and thrown herself into the arms of the earth and sun, it had felt so natural, so right; and the weeks spent with Kylo have been full of joyous discoveries and peace and happiness, clouds and sunshine and flowers and grass and cows and miraculous, terrifying rain and <em> Kylo </em>, and just so much more beauty than she thought she’d ever have the privilege of experiencing. But standing here before an accusatory, hurt Zorii makes Rey doubt every decision she’s made since they last saw each other.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t leave out of spite for you,” Rey finally says. “I left because I don’t belong. I’ve never belonged. You don’t need anyone to tell you that, Zorii; you know it yourself. I’ve always been Father’s least favorite daughter, I’ve always been the worst at spinning starlight, and I’ve always felt the draw of the sun. I don’t belong on the moon, Zorii.”</p><p> </p><p>“But we need you,” Zorii mumbles, looking away from Rey. “I’m not able to handle a loom yet, so I can’t help our sisters spin starlight. What if you came back, just until I could take your place?”</p><p> </p><p>“Zorii,” Rey says sadly, “you know that if I went back, Father would never let me leave.”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii closes her eyes. “I know,” she says softly.</p><p> </p><p>“And I’m sure that in the meantime, if our sisters focused less on finding me and more on spinning starlight, they would be able to compensate for my absence,” Rey points out, a touch bitterly. Her older sisters have always sided with their Father, watching in stoic silence whenever the Nightkeeper King berated her for her many failings.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe,” Zorii says hesitantly, not quite as convinced.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s wonderful here, Zorii,” Rey says, her bitterness melting as she thinks of the time she’s spent here. “The world is a beautiful place, and I’ve met someone who is terribly kind to me, and the sun isn’t as garish and horrible as Father says.”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii looks up hesitantly with moonbeam eyes, watching as Rey’s expression relaxes subconsciously into one of wistful happiness. </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy,” Zorii says, unable to keep a jab of envy from tainting her happiness for her sister. Rey, not seeming to notice, nods, looking away even as she smiles.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll go home,” Zorii finally says, looking up at the moon. “I’ll tell them I didn’t find you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Zorii—”</p><p> </p><p>“But that doesn’t mean they’ll stop trying,” Zorii says warningly. “Father takes your running away as a personal insult and the ultimate act of rebellion against him, and our sisters aren’t going to intervene on your behalf. They will keep searching until they find you, and they will force you to return home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Every moment between now and then,” Rey says slowly, “will be worth it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I hope so...” Zorii says, her voice fading to a whisper of wind, her garment dispersing into wisps of pale smoke, her eyes brightening and receding until they become two stars in the sky. </p><p> </p><p>“...for your sake.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When Kylo wakes up in the morning, he stretches, grunting quietly to himself, and realizes that Rey isn’t lying in bed beside him. He pats her half of the mattress—cold—and looks around, panic rising slowly in his chest. He arises from the mattress and, not seeing her anywhere in the hut, hurries to the door, nearly tripping over her crouched form.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey?” He asks, kneeling down beside her. She turns her face slowly to look at him. He watches as her gaze returns from its distant wandering and settles on him.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she finally says. “Sorry. I...couldn’t sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is something wrong?”</p><p> </p><p>“No.” She turns away. “Just a dream.”</p><p> </p><p>“More than that, from the looks of it,” Kylo retorts gently. “But you don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”</p><p> </p><p>She flinches away from him. “I don’t want to,” she says, rising to her feet and kicking up her heels as she beats a hasty retreat to the paddock. </p><p> </p><p>Chewie rises from his spot by the fence and bounds up to Rey happily, greeting her with a wet kiss; she bends down to pet him, her hair cascading over her face, hiding her expression from Kylo’s view. </p><p> </p><p>Kylo turns to retreat into the hut to prepare for their trip out into the heath, but before he can get very far, Rey is hurrying back to him, a conflicted look on her face. He turns at the sound of her footsteps in time to catch her as she collides with him.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry!” She’s saying in a rush as she wraps him in the first hug he’s had in centuries. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to treat you like that. You’ve been nothing but kind to me, and I wish…”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo holds her close, pressing his hands into the small of her back, the narrow span of her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“What is it?” He asks. “What do you wish?”</p><p> </p><p>“I just wish I didn’t have to keep so many secrets from you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you keep them, then?”</p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t believe anything I say. You’d think I was insane, or making fun of you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t. I promise.”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Rey sighs, shaking her head. “It’s better that you don’t know. It’s...safer for both of us.”</p><p> </p><p>She looks up thoughtfully at him for a moment, still leaning into his chest, her arms wrapped loosely about his ribs.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you for taking such good care of me,” she says abruptly, her eyes glinting hazel in the morning sunshine. “I’m sure I would be dead if you hadn’t taken me in.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s nothing,” Kylo says, suddenly uncomfortable. Something about her words feels final. But she smiles radiantly at him, dimples flashing, and he forgets about his unease.</p><p> </p><p>“I was thinking,” he says as she releases him and steps away, and as they reenter the hut, “that we could go into Nymeve sometime this week.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nymeve? Why?”</p><p> </p><p>“Nymeve has a week-long festival every year, during the last week of summer. The festival started two days ago, and should be in full swing right now. I have to go into town, anyway; I’m low on potatoes, and I’ve run out of the dried fruit that you like so much…”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo knows that he’s rambling, but can’t seem to stop as he nervously watches Rey’s face. She stares at him incredulously, and he looks away.</p><p> </p><p>“Forget it,” he mumbles. “Nymeve is tiny, and its festivals aren’t worth the effort—”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d like to go,” Rey cuts in.</p><p> </p><p>“What?”</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, if you don’t mind me coming along,” she says, backtracking immediately, shocked by her own eagerness. “I-I’ve never been to a festival of any kind before. I don’t know what to expect, really.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, it isn’t much,” Kylo says, nervously dismissive. “The people set up a temporary market and sell their wares—food, clothing, tools, trinkets—that sort of thing. The soapmaker always makes a ton of money. There’s this strange old man who plays some musical instrument that I don’t know the name of, and people attempt to dance to it. It’s usually unbearably crowded, with children and animals running wild… Some kind of lantern activity at night—”</p><p> </p><p>“It sounds wonderful,” Rey says softly, her smile on full beam. </p><p> </p><p>Kylo watches as she whirls around to run out the door, too excited to stay still, and wonders at how different she is from when she first appeared in his lean-to. It’s as though a fragment of the sun has embedded itself into her soul, giving her its endless energy and strength and golden warmth. </p><p> </p><p>Something about her remains cold and withdrawn, a kernel of darkness in an otherwise sun-drenched expanse; at times, especially at night, Kylo will look over at her, a mundane question on his lips, and catch an expression of dark introspection on her face, as though she’s contemplating something that she knows she shouldn’t; and something about the way the moonlight slants across her bright eyes, or the way the stars flash in the remote expanse of the sky, will stir up something dark and passionate in him in response. The moments are rare, but potent, exhilarating, even frightening.</p><p> </p><p>He remembers finding her in the lean-to that first morning—a pale, dark-haired little creature in the darkness. The complete antithesis of his own people. Frail, unearthly.</p><p> </p><p>He remembers carrying her in his arms, her body light as a feather; he remembers the way her skin was almost transparent in the weak morning sunlight, the gray glassiness of her wide eyes. </p><p> </p><p>He remembers thinking that nothing, <em> nothing</em>, could be so beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>But somehow, this golden creature who skims along the heath beside him by day and sleeps beside him by night, who thrives not only under the moon but also under the sun, who swerves without warning between teasing and tenderness, darkness and light, is even more beautiful than the girl he’d found in his lean-to. </p><p> </p><p>And, staring at the empty doorway, he finally faces the thing that he’s known for weeks now, the flower that unfolded slowly, almost imperceptibly, until, exploding into full bloom, it irrevocably altered the trajectory of his life.</p><p> </p><p>He loves her. He can’t live without her.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Happy Halloween, all! &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey! Hope you all are hanging in there!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After an abbreviated day of herding, they return to the hut at midday, gather up the milk and cheese they’ve set aside for trading, and set out for Nymeve on foot. By the time they arrive, the sun is at a slant, the heat of the day at its height; the village, as Kylo had warned, is crawling with people, men and women, young and old. He grimaces as he makes out the milling crowd from afar, but as they near the festival, Rey darts ahead, enticed by the smells, the colors, the voices. Kylo can do nothing but keep up.</p><p> </p><p>Half an hour later, they’re standing in the shade of a makeshift tent, and Rey is munching happily on a slice of fresh apple as Kylo chooses potatoes. </p><p> </p><p>“Fruit,” Rey says with a sigh between chews, “is the best thing that’s happened to me.” </p><p> </p><p>So far, she’s wheedled Kylo into buying her a sampling of berries, a bag of dried plums, a tiny jar of jam, a taste of goat’s milk, a chunk of honeycomb suspended in a jar of honey. When Kylo explains to her where the honey comes from, she makes a face, but still squeals her approval when she swipes a finger in the golden substance and tastes it.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought Chewie was the best thing that happened to you,” Kylo mutters, pretending to be offended as he pays the potato farmer, who glances curiously at him as he accepts the payment.</p><p> </p><p>“Chewie is up there on the list,” Rey concedes, popping the rest of the slice of apple into her mouth.</p><p> </p><p>“And what about me?” Kylo asks, half-playfully, as he hands her the rest of the apple. She takes a bite out of the crisp fruit and regards him thoughtfully as she chews.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re all right, too,” she finally says, winking cheekily; Kylo’s stomach does a strange flip as she turns away and winds quickly between the crowds of people to the soapmaker’s tent. By the time Kylo catches up with her, she’s already ogling the multicolored soaps, shaped into small squares and crescent moons and caricatures of animals.</p><p> </p><p>“Kylo!” Someone’s voice trills brightly over the mutters and calls of the crowd. Kylo looks around the tent until he spots the soapmaker, who’s hailing him with a bright, curious smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Rose,” he says in greeting as she makes her way over to him. Other people in the tent pause in their business and look up curiously at Kylo; Kylo ignores their searching eyes, keeping his gaze fixed politely on Rose.</p><p> </p><p>“Lovely to see you here,” she’s saying as she nears him. “I see you so rarely around town, and rarer still in my shop. Can I help you with anything?”</p><p> </p><p>“Just looking for now.”</p><p> </p><p>Rose finally sees Rey, then, who’s watching with a guarded expression. Undeterred, Rose flashes Rey a bright smile. </p><p> </p><p>“Ah,” the petite soapmaker says, wiping her hands on her crudely-made apron and extending a hand. “Are you a friend of Kylo’s? I’m Rose.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey hesitantly takes Rose’s hand, flashing an unsure glance at Kylo. “Hi,” she responds, faltering. “I’m… I’m Rey. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Pleasure’s all mine! Are you new around here? I don’t think I’ve seen your face here before.”</p><p> </p><p>“Uh, yes,” Rey says, blushing. “I’m fairly new.”</p><p> </p><p>“From afar, then?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um.” Rey is really floundering now; Kylo, similarly tactless, remains stock-still and unhelpful. </p><p> </p><p>“Y-yes,” Rey finally manages to say. “You could say that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Rose says, eyeing Rey with veiled curiosity, “we’re happy to welcome you to Nymeve! I hope you enjoy your time here. Now, did I see you looking at the rosemary goat’s-milk soap? Let me tell you…”</p><p> </p><p>As Rose begins to pour soapmaking knowledge onto an unprepared Rey, Kylo begins to back away, feeling exposed all of a sudden. </p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be out by the goats,” he murmurs in Rey’s ear, before turning heel and escaping from the increasingly claustrophobic tent.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“What was that?” Rey demands later as they sit in the grass, a good distance from Nymeve; having run out of milk and cheese to trade with, they must content themselves with watching the closing event of the night—the release of burning lanterns into the night sky—from afar.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Kylo asks, too nonchalantly.</p><p> </p><p>“Why did you leave me with Rose? I mean, she was more than kind, but…”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo sighs, shifting uncomfortably. “I know. I’m sorry. I just… I couldn’t be in the tent anymore.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why?” Rey asks gently, her voice like cold silk, her cat-like eyes like two little moons in the descending darkness.</p><p> </p><p>“I come from a faraway place,” Kylo says, reluctantly. “I didn’t fit in where I came from, and I don’t fit in any better here. The people here regard me with...I don’t know. Some mixture of curiosity and disgust, I think.”</p><p> </p><p>“Have you tried?”</p><p> </p><p>“Tried what?”</p><p> </p><p>“Fitting in. Getting along with people. They seem like nice folk.”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Kylo says shortly.</p><p> </p><p>“You won’t consider trying?”</p><p> </p><p>“No.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why?”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo laughs dryly. “I’m not built to fit in, Rey. I’m not kind, charismatic, generous. I’m intense, I’m awkward, I like my privacy, I don’t know how to talk to people. In a small village like this, people like me have no place.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why you’re a cowherd? Because of how solitary the job is?”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s right.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm… Why not a goatherd?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t like goats,” Kylo deadpans; to his utter incomprehension, Rey laughs.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” she says, her eyes crinkling as she smiles, “like I said earlier, <em> I </em> think you’re all right, for what it’s worth.”</p><p> </p><p>“I assure you, it’s not the norm. Not in the least.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey’s quiet for a long moment. Kylo watches as stars begin to appear in the sky, and hopes that she won’t tell him to get to know the village folk, to play into their norms.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we’re alike, in that way,” she finally says, and it isn’t what Kylo was expecting to come out of her mouth. “Used to not fitting in, used to solitude.”</p><p> </p><p>“I find that hard to believe.”</p><p> </p><p>“I promise you,” Rey says, sounding tired, “where I come from, I didn’t belong, either. It’s why I left.”</p><p> </p><p>“Funny,” Kylo muses. “It’s why I left where I come from, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Like I said,” Rey says cheekily. “We’re alike.”</p><p> </p><p>“I suppose we are,” Kylo says, grinning down at her. She smiles, dazzling even in the darkness, and leans her cheek against his arm, a gesture that he doesn’t know how to interpret.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that a lantern?” Rey asks abruptly, her spine straightening as she gazes intently at the village. Kylo looks over; sure enough, somewhere in town, someone is lighting up a simple lantern of oil-doused wool and paper. As Rey watches, and as Kylo watches Rey, the first lamp is then lifted gently into the air, swept up steadily by the winds of the moor. Within minutes, the lamp is a mere dot of light, high overhead, blending in with the stars; it self-extinguishes, leaving behind only a trail of ash and a memory of its light.</p><p> </p><p>Following the success of the first lamp, a chorus of dots of light suddenly come to life in the dark silence, and Rey watches with bated breath as many lamps, more than she can count, more than she could ever have imagined, take to the night sky like a flock of otherworldly birds, like a band of spirits ascending to the heavens. </p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” she says, breathless; it’s all she can manage to say.</p><p> </p><p>She stares up at the sky long after the last lamp is swallowed up by ash; she stares at the stars, at the waxing moon; she thinks of how she once sat on a balcony on the moon and wove starlight, releasing it into the sky, similar to how the Nymeveans were releasing their lamps into the sky. She thinks of Zorii and Bazine, and Kylo. And, unbidden, her eyes fill with tears.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s wrong?” Kylo asks as the tears rolling down her cheeks catch the light of the moon.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing,” she says, wiping at her eyes. She tries to apologize, but a sob tears its way out of her throat instead.</p><p> </p><p>“Here,” Kylo murmurs, folding her quickly in his arms. “Come here. It’s all right.”</p><p> </p><p>He smooths her hair back from her face with gentle fingers, wiping at her tears with a work-roughened thumb. He asks hesitantly if she wants to talk about it as her sobs die down. She shakes her head no, burying her face in the cloth of his shirt, focusing on the feel of his arms around her, the solidness of his chest, his shoulders, his voice.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to go home?” He asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she whispers. He stands up and wordlessly offers to carry her. Normally, she would turn her nose up at the offer, preferring to use her hard-earned strength, but right now, she isn’t quite ready for the loss of his reassuring warmth. And so she allows herself to be lifted up, pressed against his chest, held in the comforting cage of his arms.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Once they reach the hut, they’re greeted sleepily by Chewie. Kylo rekindles the coals in the firepit to ward off the chill of the early autumn night and leaves momentarily to check on the cows. Rey takes advantage of his absence and, moving quickly, removes her dirt-loaded clothes, washes herself quickly with a wet rag, and is about to dive into her bedclothes, before a thought overtakes her.</p><p> </p><p>She settles down on the mattress slowly, gathering the blankets around her folded legs and waist. With her back turned to the entrance of the hut, she shakes her hair loose, letting it fall around her, brushing the dirt from it with long, methodical strokes of her fingers, biding her time.</p><p> </p><p>And when Kylo enters, she hears his heavy footfalls stop cold at the sight of her bare back. </p><p> </p><p>She makes another long, luxuriant sweep of her fingers through her hair, twirling the long, silken band around her fist and pulling it over her right shoulder, exposing her back from her shoulders down to her hips.</p><p> </p><p>She chances a peek over her shoulder at Kylo, who hasn’t made a noise.</p><p> </p><p>He’s staring, with wide eyes, at the mark of the star on the exposed nape of her neck.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that…” He begins, his voice faltering as he approaches her slowly. Her anticipation fades as she takes in the look of pure shock on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that the mark of the Nightsisters?” He asks quietly, brushing some of her stray hairs out of the way as he examines the back of her neck. </p><p> </p><p>Her blood runs cold.</p><p> </p><p>“How do you know what it is?” She demands, suddenly fearful.</p><p> </p><p>He removes his own shirt quickly, bunches his hair up in one hand, and twists around to show her the back of his neck.</p><p> </p><p>She sees, at his nape, a stylized sun in black ink, its many spikes undulating and varied in length.</p><p> </p><p>The mark of a Skywalker.</p><p> </p><p>She scrambles back from him with a hiss, yanking the blanket up to cover herself; he drops his hair and leaps back, his expression instantly guarded.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re a Skywalker,” she breathes, quite unnecessarily, her chest already heaving as fear and adrenaline pump through her body; for a moment, she forgets everything she knows about Kylo, and the fear of- and hatred for Skywalkers that the Nightkeeper King had instilled in her rears its head. </p><p> </p><p>“Your clan is the most ancient of enemies of my family,” she continues, her words falling out of her mouth like water. “Your people have hunted and killed us for as long as we’ve existed. You’re the ones who poisoned my sister, Ventress; you’re the reason why her hair will never grow back, why she'll never be able to look upon the bright side of the moon. I’ve been staying with an enemy all this time. Did you know? Were you sent by your Queen to lure me in, capture me?”</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Kylo exclaims, “you know that’s ridiculous. I’ve been living here, in exile, for millennia. I haven’t spoken to or seen anyone from my clan in all that time. I didn’t see your mark until just now.”</p><p> </p><p>“Where do your loyalties lie?” She demands, feeling hurt and betrayed. “What are you really doing here?”</p><p> </p><p>“I just told you! I’m in exile. I left of my own accord! And what about you? What are <em> you </em>doing here? Did your father send you to kill me? To see what use I might be against my clan?”</p><p> </p><p>“I ran away from home for my own reasons,” Rey insists. “I told you earlier. It had nothing to do with you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Listen,” Kylo says, holding out his hands. “Listen. If we’re both telling the truth, then we have nothing to fear from each other, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Rey regards him, her eyes like two burning coals; she doesn’t respond.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re both in exile from our homelands,” Kylo continues, frantic. “We’re both outcasts. Our families have hurt each other countless times in the past, it’s true. But we no longer hold any allegiance to our families.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who is your allegiance to, then?” Rey asks, fearful of his response.</p><p> </p><p>“Me,” he answers immediately; then, quietly: “You.”</p><p> </p><p>His response is touching and immensely confusing; she regrets asking him such a question. Gathering the blanket around herself quickly, she stumbles up from the bed and hurries out into the night.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Kylo says, following close behind, “where are you going? Please, just wait a moment.”</p><p> </p><p>“For what?” She demands, stopping in the middle of a patch of grass, the edge of the blanket dragging in the flora. Memories come to her, unbidden; memories of Ventress lying in bed, writhing in silent pain; memories of Zorii’s hurt and confusion upon finding Rey on Earth; memories of her Father’s horrible eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t do this,” she mutters, turning her back on Kylo. “I can’t. I have to go home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” he cries, lunging for her and knocking her onto the ground; she feels the wind leave her lungs with a loud whoosh, and gasps for breath.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, picking himself up off her and pulling her into his lap; she struggles weakly against him, the blanket slipping from her shoulders, but he holds fast to her, clutching her, as though he’s clinging onto life itself.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” he repeats frantically. “Please. I’m sorry. Just—don’t go. Not now. Not like this. Please.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s whispering against her neck now, his words filling her ears, her mind. She closes her eyes, her tears beginning afresh. Chewie thunders up to them, barking raucously; but before Kylo can shush him or push him away, he seems to sense that something is wrong, and comes to a stop, looking mutely between the two people.</p><p> </p><p>“I miss them,” Rey sobs into Kylo’s shirt, her hands fisting around the fabric of the neckline. “I miss Zorii. I miss Bazine. I miss the moon. I feel so guilty.”</p><p> </p><p>“You left all of that behind for a reason,” he reminds her. “You said you didn’t belong.”</p><p> </p><p>“But I still love them. They were my home.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo is silent for a long moment, rubbing Rey’s back in slow, circular motions.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you want to go back?” He asks, dreading the answer.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she answers immediately. “But being here with you, like this… It still feels wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>“Everything about us is wrong, Rey,” he murmurs, cupping the back of her head with his hand. “I have too much darkness in me to be a Skywalker, and you have too much light in you to be a Nightsister.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” she moans, frustrated. “But sometimes, I wish I could belong with them. I wish I could just fit in.”</p><p> </p><p>“We are who we are. Let go of the person you can never be. Let go of the past.”</p><p> </p><p>He rocks her back and forth, listening to the subsiding of her sobs.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you, Rey,” he says, suddenly, and he feels her go still in his arms, but he plows on, afraid of stopping while he still has the nerve. </p><p> </p><p>“For what it’s worth, I love you exactly the way you are. You might not belong on the moon with your Nightsisters and the Nightkeeper King, and you certainly don’t belong with the Skywalkers, but you belong with me. I can feel it, and I know you feel it, too. Can’t we just be like this, together?”</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t respond. He continues to hold her with a tenderness that he didn’t know existed within himself, rocking gently, back and forth, waiting for her to say something, <em> anything...  </em></p><p> </p><p>But she doesn’t respond. Instead, after what feels like an eternity, she gently extricates herself from his arms and stands, adjusting the blanket around herself. Chewie lopes back to the fence and plops down in the grass, still watching his two humans carefully; Kylo gets up robotically and follows Rey back to the hut.</p><p> </p><p>“Go to sleep,” she mutters, not looking at him, once they reach the entrance. “I need some time to think.”</p><p> </p><p>“All right,” he replies. But he stands beside her, unwilling to leave her at the door.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t go anywhere,” she promises. “I just…”</p><p> </p><p>“All right,” he repeats, in a voice barely above a whisper. He climbs onto the mattress, careful to keep clear of her half, and waits tensely, listening for any indication of movement. But no sound rises from the entrance of the hut, no footsteps, no rustling of hair or cloth; and, slowly, unwillingly, Kylo succumbs to the exhaustion of the day, and slips into sleep.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>He awakens abruptly, sometime in the early hours of the morning; he realizes with a start that Rey is settling into the mattress beside him. Unhesitating, he pulls her close, wrapping an arm around her slender, naked waist, her stick-thin arms; she lifts a hand and brushes aside a strand of hair from his face, her fingers gentle against his skin.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you too,” she whispers, watching him with luminous eyes.</p><p> </p><p>He presses closer to her, body to body, heart to heart, soul to soul. He leans his face toward her, not caring whether this is merely a dream, and he kisses her.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“Who are Zorii and Bazine?”</p><p> </p><p>The sky is turning a pale rose as the sun rises.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re m-my sisters. Bazine took care of me when I first arrived, and Zorii—mmh—I took care of Zorii when she arrived.”</p><p> </p><p>“Arrived?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes… All Nightsisters are brought to the moon from Earth as young children.”</p><p> </p><p>“I see.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey yelps, then giggles; Kylo backs off, smiling apologetically, kissing tenderly the delicate bruise he’s sucked from her neck. He leaves a trail of leisurely, feather-soft kisses down to her collarbone, then further down to the delicate dip of her sternum.</p><p> </p><p>He lifts his face slightly to gauge her reaction. She stares back at him brazenly for a moment, and a glint of mischief lights up her eyes before she twists suddenly under him; the next thing he knows, he’s on his back, and Rey, naked except for the cloak of her hair, lies sprawled over him. She drags herself up to his eye level, bracketing his head with her arms; she leans down slowly, examining his face, his neck, with a slow ease.</p><p> </p><p>“What about you?” Rey asks as she plants her lips hesitantly to the slant of his jaw. “How did you come to be a Skywalker?”</p><p> </p><p>He tries to turn his head, but she gently grabs a fistful of his hair, holding his head in place, before meandering from his jaw to his Adam’s apple, leaving a trail of inexperienced kisses. She hears him suck in a quiet breath, and feels a chill of triumph.</p><p> </p><p>“Usually, we do what the Nightkeeper King does,” he says. “We take young children from Earth and impart our powers, knowledge, and responsibility to them. But I was born of the Queen.”</p><p> </p><p>“You are the Queen’s own son?” Rey gasps, pausing in her exploration of the knotted muscles of his chest, the faint scars crisscrossing his shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he sighs. “Although I’m not sure if I am anymore. We haven’t spoken to each other in a long time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course you’re still her son,” she exclaims, pushing her own hair out of her face to look at him. “If I can be considered the Nightkeeper King’s daughter, even after what I’ve done, then you can still be considered your Queen’s son.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not after what I’ve done,” he mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do?”</p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Is it what got you exiled?”</p><p> </p><p>“In a way,” he responds slowly. “My exile was a long time coming, and a mutually agreed upon arrangement in the end.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you think there is any hope?”</p><p> </p><p>“Even if there was, I wouldn’t want to go back.”</p><p> </p><p>“Really?” She looks at him wistfully. “Why not?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because I don’t belong there,” he replies simply. “I miss it sometimes, of course. I wish, sometimes, that I was good enough to be a Skywalker, to take up the mantle that my mother would have passed onto me. But that just isn’t who I am, and I’ve made my peace with the fact.”</p><p> </p><p>“I envy your conviction,” Rey says quietly. “I wish I could be so sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not a matter of conviction,” Kylo clarifies. “It’s a decision. I avoided making it for a long time, but once I made it…” He shrugs. “That was that.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey lays her chin on Kylo’s chest and ponders for a moment. Perhaps it really is that simple. </p><p> </p><p>“I killed someone,” he says abruptly, his eyes distant.</p><p> </p><p>She looks up at him silently, caught off guard.</p><p> </p><p>“I killed my uncle. My mother’s twin brother.”</p><p> </p><p>“The Starkiller?” Rey says, with quiet shock. “That’s why we’ve seen and heard nothing of him?”</p><p> </p><p>“And some of his disciples,” Kylo adds, wincing.</p><p> </p><p>“I see,” Rey mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“My uncle was always vocal on his thoughts about me,” Kylo explains in a quiet, pain-dulled voice. “The natural-born, half-breed son of the Skywalker Queen. A <em> troubled </em>young man. Too much darkness in me to be a Skywalker. He tried to stomp it out of me, but everything he tried drove me further and further from the clan.”</p><p> </p><p>She can feel Kylo tensing up underneath her, and immediately places one of her hands on his cheek, running her thumb tenderly against the delicate skin under his eye. He closes his eyes as he continues.</p><p> </p><p>“I got into an argument with my mother one day. I don’t recall what it was about; I think I was opposing one of the rules they imposed upon their disciples. And it was far from the first time I argued with someone about the many rules that Skywalkers adhere to, to preserve their ‘purity.’ Anyway, whatever it was, it got ugly, and I swore angrily that I would never become a full-fledged Skywalker. I wasn’t sure if I meant it at the time, but my mother took it to heart.”</p><p> </p><p>“What happened?” Rey prompts gently when he falls silent.</p><p> </p><p>“She went to my uncle and told him what I swore. And he took it to heart, too.”</p><p> </p><p>“What did he do?”</p><p> </p><p>“He thought that a person like me was unspeakably dangerous. I knew all of the ways and weaknesses of the Skywalkers; I knew their precepts, their responsibilities, their vulnerabilities. He thought I could not be allowed to just walk away from the clan.”</p><p> </p><p>“He tried to kill you,” Rey realizes, her apprehension melting into horror.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes. He took with him a few of his disciples and came to my home while I was sleeping, and they… They attacked me.”</p><p> </p><p>With his eyes still closed, Kylo reaches up and finds with his fingers a scarred-over gash that runs across his shoulder and collarbone. The scar is raised and dark, and evidently took a long time to heal.</p><p> </p><p>“This was my uncle,” he says quietly.</p><p> </p><p>Rey, at a loss for words, traces a shaking finger along the ruined flesh; she tries to rein in her reaction, not wanting to make Kylo any more uncomfortable than he already is, but a tear manages to escape the corner of her eye.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo opens his eyes to watch her, and reaches up to wipe the tear away with his thumb. </p><p> </p><p>Rey lowers herself next to him and wraps herself around him, hooking her fingers around his shoulder, her ankle around his calves; she kisses his scar, then pushes him lightly until he’s rolled onto his side, before pressing her lips to the mark on the back of his neck, hiding her tears in his hair.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right,” he murmurs, reaching up to cup his hand around her fingers.</p><p> </p><p>She says nothing; just holds him tighter.</p><p> </p><p>“We have to let the cows out,” he says presently. She chuckles humorlessly; she throws a quick glance at the covering of the entrance and sees that the sunlight is growing stronger. Chewie will be getting antsier, steadily, and will burst in at any moment, reminding them of their lateness.</p><p> </p><p>She heaves a sigh and begins to get up, but Kylo turns with surprising speed and catches her in his arms, pinning her chest to the mattress. He smiles at her yelp of surprise; she catches a glimpse of his cheek creased with mirth, and then he’s brushing aside her long curtain of hair, running his lips gently along the star on the back of her neck.</p><p> </p><p>She giggles, then sighs, at the sensation. </p><p> </p><p>“No more secrets between us?” He murmurs into her hair.</p><p> </p><p>She stills for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“No more secrets,” she whispers.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>They get one day. One day of sunshine, of breathtaking arrangements of silk-spun clouds unfurling overhead, of Chewie loping happily alongside the ambling herd. One day of grass too juicy green to be real, air heady and sweet enough to taste, rivers whose trickling and bubbling sound like distant, joyous laughter.</p><p> </p><p>One day of walking under the sun, hand in hand, utterly at ease. One day of sitting under the shade, leaning against each other without having to wonder where exactly they stand. </p><p> </p><p>One day of pure, perfect bliss.</p><p> </p><p>And that night, They come.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rey first gets the sense that something is wrong when she looks up at the darkening sky, expecting to see the brightest stars beginning to appear, and sees nothing but an empty expanse.</p><p> </p><p>She stands outside as Kylo slips into the hut, muttering something about potatoes. She watches patiently as the sun sets, as the moon rises, as the sky fades to an inky black.</p><p> </p><p>Still no stars.</p><p> </p><p>She retreats into the hut, troubled and silent.</p><p> </p><p>And then, as they eat their evening meal in companionable silence, she hears the first scream. Kylo sees her flinch, and pauses in his chewing to give her a questioning stare.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” she reassures him calmly. “Just thought I heard something.”</p><p> </p><p>He gives her a look as another scream tears through the night air, somehow simultaneously distant and immediate.</p><p> </p><p>“I thought we agreed,” he admonishes gently. “No more secrets.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re right,” Rey sighs, setting down her food for a moment and rubbing a hand over her face. In a low voice, she admits: “I’m hearing screams.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo regards her solemnly. “What kind of screams?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know.” Another one cuts through the air. “It sounds like people in pain. Or perhaps people in fear… I’m not sure. You don’t hear them?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Kylo says, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t hear anything.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey presses her hands over her ears, but in vain; the building sounds of overlaid screams and cries seem to cut through her fingers. She shuts her eyes, which, of course, does nothing.</p><p> </p><p>She feels Kylo shift, and then he’s wrapping his arms around her, drawing her close; she immediately clings to his shirt, buries her face in his neck. In the cool evening, the warmth of his embrace is soothing, but it does nothing to drown out the sound.</p><p> </p><p>“Did you notice...the stars…?” She asks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he mutters. “Do you think it could be related?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know. Perhaps.”</p><p> </p><p>He frowns when she winces. “Is it getting louder?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she whispers. Unsure of what to do, Kylo holds her close, cupping the back of her head with one hand and rubbing her back with the other, trying to do what he can to make her feel safe. But she shivers endlessly in his arms, her terrified confusion almost contagious, and he stares through the open doorway at the starless sky, and frowns thoughtfully.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When the time comes to sleep, they lie in bed, both wide awake. Rey tries her best to not toss and turn, but the distant screams have grown in volume and number, to the point where they have become impossible to ignore, and the constant sound makes falling into peaceful sleep unsurprisingly difficult. Kylo, keenly aware of her discomfort, lies awake, feeling utterly useless.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” Rey whispers in the darkness. “Go to sleep. There isn’t anything you can do.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo rolls onto his side to face her. “I could keep you company.”</p><p> </p><p>“That would be unsensible,” Rey mutters, even as she turns to him and smiles. “Neither of us would get any sleep, and where would that leave us?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve gone whole nights without sleep before,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s terrible!” Rey exclaims. “How do you function—”</p><p> </p><p>She stops mid-sentence, mid-breath; her eyes, still fixed on Kylo, widen, unblinking, unseeing.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo props himself up on an elbow. “What is it?” He asks, urgently.</p><p> </p><p>She turns slowly to look at the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re here,” she breathes.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>There’s nothing to be done. Rey climbs out of bed and adjusts her clothes, head ringing, blood pounding in her ears; when Kylo tries to follow her outside, she hisses at him to stay out of sight. He complies, reluctantly, and hangs back as she steps out into the night.</p><p> </p><p>They’re advancing quickly over the heath, their feet barely seeming to disturb the grass and flowers. Her sisters flit weightlessly through the air, bound from Earth’s gravity by their Father’s magic, their hair and white shift dresses fluttering like the banners of a ghostly armada in the moonlight.</p><p> </p><p>And behind them, his footsteps masked by the long drag of his black cloak, his face largely hidden in the shadow of his hood, his eyes burning bright gold, walks the Nightkeeper King himself.</p><p> </p><p>Rey feels her strength of will shrivel up within her.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” the King whispers. Even though they’re still at a distance and walking towards her, in their usual leisurely manner, his voice sweeps across the windy plain and cuts through her like a blade.</p><p> </p><p>“Father,” she replies, casting her eyes down. If it had been any of her sisters on their own, or perhaps even her Father on his own, she would have been willing to risk a fight. But the whole of her family, even with Ventress absent, is much more than she can handle; even she must acknowledge that. So, instead of tossing her head in defiance, instead of planting her feet and challenging them, she kneels on the dusty ground and bows her head.</p><p> </p><p>She waits until they have arrived before her before she speaks.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you find me?”</p><p> </p><p>“You should not have entrusted your youngest sister with such a ponderous secret,” the King sighs, nodding at the small figure of Zorii, who stands at the back of the crowd. “I knew at once when she lied to me about not knowing your whereabouts. And I did not have to expend too much effort to extract the truth from her.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey glances up at Zorii, and realizes, with a sickening twist in her stomach, that the youngest Nightsister’s face is marred with a long, ridged scar down the right side of her childish oval face; the scar runs from her forehead down to her chin, and passes, startlingly, through her right eye. Zorii looks up at Rey, her normally-expressive face blank, and Rey realizes with a start that the girl’s right eye has gone milky white.</p><p> </p><p>“What did you do to her?” Rey demands, her lip quivering as she gazes upon her sister’s ruined face. The other Nightsisters look away uncomfortably.</p><p> </p><p>“She has received her punishment for aiding you,” the King replies calmly. “And now, it is time for you to end this ridiculous act of rebellion, Rey, and return home to receive your punishment. I hoped that, with strict guidance and tender discipline, you would one day relinquish your foolish fascination with the Light, and the Earth. But I know now that I was wrong. You will return home with us. And you will never see a single particle of light, ever again.”</p><p> </p><p>Bazine’s head snaps up, eyes wide. “Father—” she protests, stepping forward, but the King holds up his hand, and she closes her mouth quickly.</p><p> </p><p>Rey balls her hands into fists; angry tears flow down her face in hot rivulets. She’s about to open her mouth and utter a (probably useless) retort when she hears movement behind her.</p><p> </p><p>The King’s eyes snap up behind her, his face slackening with surprise; the other Nightsisters look up as well, similarly confounded. Rey curses under her breath and whirls around, in time to see Kylo emerging from the hut, his eyes blazing, Chewie barking up a storm from behind his heels.</p><p> </p><p>Rey shoots to her feet and is about to race back to Kylo, when she realizes that something is wrong. </p><p> </p><p>Or, rather, something is...different. </p><p> </p><p>Even in the darkness of the night, Kylo seems to be glowing. Rey watches as tendrils of honey-gold light unfurl from the back of his neck and creep over his shoulders, around his ribs, down his arms and chest. His eyes, once obsidian, now flare with pure white light, and his threadbare clothes fall away from his body in flecks of flame and ash.</p><p> </p><p>The being that strides towards her with deadly purpose is no longer merely Kylo. It is the son of the Skywalker Queen, and the sight of him causes a shriek to rise from the throats of her sisters.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” Zorii cries out, rushing towards her; Bazine, grimly silent, follows Zorii, and they tug on Rey’s hands, trying to draw her away.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Rey shouts over the roaring sound of fire. “I need to go to him.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’ll die!” Phasma hisses, her short platinum hair whipping about her face from the force of the heat emanating from Kylo; she shields her face with one pale hand, glaring daggers at Rey.</p><p> </p><p>Rey shakes off the hands that are holding her back, and watches, half with awe, half with foreboding, as Kylo reaches a bronze arm over his shoulder, his brow set as though in metal.</p><p> </p><p>“At least step to the side,” Bazine mutters in Rey’s ear; Rey turns around and sees that her Father, his mouth twisted into a smirk, stands motionless despite the heat and the bright light, eyes fixed on Kylo. She hurries out of the path between the two men, herding Zorii along as she goes.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo seems to grasp something over his shoulder, and as he draws his hand back out, the grip of a flaming sword is clenched in his fist, as though it had been sheathed behind his back all along. He brandishes the weapon with an ease that belies the centuries he's spent in exile, and stops a small distance from the Nightkeeper King, putting himself between Rey and her Father.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, at the entrance of the hut, Chewie is running in tight circles, yapping nervously; as Kylo stops before the Nightkeeper King, Chewie seems to make up his mind and zooms across the ground at full speed towards his master. With an unexpected <em> fwoom </em>, the dog bursts into flames, its eyes also glowing a bright white; it leaves a trail of scorched grass as it nears, and it seems to grow in size. By the time it reaches Kylo’s side, Chewie—or the being that was Chewie a moment ago—stands to the height of Kylo’s shoulders. It pounds to a halt, its giant paws swallowed up in flame, and it opens its mouth and roars.</p><p> </p><p>“Chewbacca,” the Nightkeeper King murmurs, his stare switching from Chewie back to Kylo. “The Hellhound, companion of the Queen’s late consort. I assume that makes you the Queen’s exiled halfbreed welp.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo doesn't react to the barb.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” the King sighs, his voice eerily quiet even as the golden light of his eyes is suddenly swallowed up by black, “I came here with the hope that you would beg for my forgiveness, that you would at least try to convince me to soften my punishment. But seeing this <em> creature </em> and his <em> pet </em>rush to your defense eliminates all hope for you, my daughter.”</p><p> </p><p>The King’s eyes, invisible now under the heavy shade of his hood, send a foreboding chill down Rey's back. His cold anger, his golden-glowing eyes, his thin-pressed lips, are all terrifying, but familiar, bearable. This—this is something different, something she’s only seen in the heat of battle. Something he doesn’t unleash casually. </p><p> </p><p>She yanks herself free of her sisters’ hold and runs to Kylo. </p><p> </p><p>“Listen to me,” she says to him urgently; she places a wary hand on his arm, and is relieved when he doesn't burn her hand. “This isn't a fight you can win. We both know that my Father has more darkness in him than you do light. Kylo, let me go.”</p><p> </p><p>She can't see his eyes—they glow with the burning light of the sun itself—but she can feel when his gaze settles on her.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t let you go. Not to him,” he swears, in a low, thunderous voice that doesn't sound like Kylo. </p><p> </p><p>“Please,” she whispers. “I can't risk you getting hurt.”</p><p> </p><p>“Listen to the wisdom of my daughter,” the King says with a mocking purr.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo's chin jerks up as he fixes his glare onto the King. With one arm, he gently pushes Rey to the side, easily overwhelming her resistance; with the other, he raises his sword of flame and points it at the King—a clear challenge.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t,” Rey shouts, reaching for his sword. At the same moment, the King snaps his arm up, pointing one wrinkled, claw-like hand out in response to Kylo’s challenge, and a tendril of pure, all-devouring darkness snaps like a whip, catching Chewie across the shoulder. The giant firehound jumps out of the way, yelping with pain, before opening its jaws and, with another roar, unleashing a column of bright white flame from its belly at the King.</p><p> </p><p>The King, his eyes still invisible, his mouth curving like the blade of a scythe, easily diverts the column of flame and disperses the light with an arcing swathe of darkness. Kylo takes the opportunity to swoop in, leaping at the King, his sword at the ready.</p><p> </p><p>“Father,” Phasma shouts, but the King is ready; he disappears for a moment, a dark silhouette against the nightscape, and suddenly a wave of darkness bursts forth soundlessly from his silhouette, all-encompassing. It washes over Rey harmlessly, but knocks Chewie senseless, and swirls around Kylo’s body like a whirlpool, trapping his ankles and forcing him to lose his balance and fall onto his side. </p><p> </p><p>The King’s pale hand appears suddenly, outstretched from his shadowy body; he clenches his hand into a fist and swings it down, and the ground underneath Chewie falls away, replaced by a dark void. The hound bellows, trying to claw itself out, but the void, with an invisible vacuum-like force, begins to pull at Chewie, distorting the hound in a disturbing way.</p><p> </p><p>Unable to run to the aid of his hound, Kylo shouts with rage and flings his sword; it spins through the air, a shining arc, and lodges itself in the mouth of the void.</p><p> </p><p>But it seems too late; Chewie’s form, irreparably distorted by the pull of the black void, spills forth onto the grass, a shimmering, quickly-disintegrating pool of light, swirling with a vibrant thready mixture of burnished oranges and yellows and whites. From somewhere in the pool, Chewie whines, once; then, he is silent. The remainder of his form is sucked quickly, soundlessly, into the void; the darkness snaps shut, and Kylo’s sword snaps up into the air before falling back to the ground with a soundless impact, singing the grass around it to ash.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo bellows, reaching in blind anger for his sword. Bright beams of flame begin to leak from his ears, his nostrils, drip from his mouth; with a cry that sounds more like the groaning of earth, he reaches instead for the King, and shards of light shoot forth from his hand, slicing through the air towards the King’s smirking face.</p><p> </p><p>With a mockingly unruffled air, the King flicks his wrist, raising a shield into which the shards of light melt. He twists his hand, and the dark mass wrapped around Kylo’s ankles twists with a wrenching motion; Rey thinks she can hear shrieking in the distance. She starts forward, but Bazine and Zorii grab hold of her, and this time, she can tell that they do not mean to let her go.</p><p> </p><p>The Nightkeeper King reaches out his hand towards Kylo’s silently struggling form; his slit-like mouth falls open an inch. It’s the slightest sign of concentration, and before anyone can react, the whirlpool of darkness around Kylo’s ankles suddenly surges upward, swallowing up his body up to his thighs. He twists and writhes, to no avail; it’s as though his body from the thighs down has simply disappeared. The distant shrieks rise in volume, steadily, almost imperceptibly.</p><p> </p><p>Rey struggles with everything she’s got against Bazine and Zorii, watching with wide eyes as the whirlpool of darkness surges upward again, consuming Kylo up to his chest. Kylo is almost impossible to look at—his skin flashes bright white, like molten metal, and his face is like the sun—but the darkness swallows up his light, consuming it greedily, faster than he can generate it.</p><p> </p><p>“Kylo!” Rey shrieks; then, “Father, please, stop! I’ve learned my lesson. Just please, don’t kill him!” </p><p> </p><p>She’s weak in the darkness, far too weak to face down her sisters, to say nothing of her Father; she turns to the only other course she has, and kneels in the dirt, the fragrant grass and flowers and the great slabs of stone rising to meet her.</p><p> </p><p>“Please,” she repeats, bowing her head, hot tears of anger and heartbreak threatening to brim over. “Please, let him go.”</p><p> </p><p>In the pause that ensues, she dares to look up; even as she watches, Kylo begins to dim, his skin turning from bright white to a sort of dull metallic bronze; the darkness rises to his shoulders, consuming his arms. His breaths are labored grunts, and his eyes have a glazed look to them. The Nightkeeper King, without relenting his grip on Kylo, turns his face slowly to Rey. </p><p> </p><p>“If you dare to beg for his life to be spared,” he whispers, “then you have most certainly not learned your lesson.”</p><p> </p><p>He clenches his hand into a fist. Rey shrieks wordlessly; her sisters are grimly silent. The remainder of Kylo is swallowed up in an inky, implacable darkness, and the whirlpool melts away, dripping onto the grass, leaving dark scars in the earth. Kylo’s sword is abruptly extinguished, leaving behind an unembellished, many-times-polished handle, lying innocuously in the dirt.</p><p> </p><p>Rey shrieks again, twisting and yanking herself free of her sisters before running to the spot where Kylo had disappeared. She drops down to the ground, running her shaking fingers through the ruined grass and the ashy dirt and touching the scorch marks in the rock with her fingertips.</p><p> </p><p>She has never seen that particular spell wrought by her Father before, but she can guess what it does. She can guess what her Father has doomed Kylo to suffer.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she moans, burying her face in her dirtied hands. “No, no…”</p><p> </p><p>The Nightkeeper King sheathes his hands in the sleeves of his cloak; his eyes slowly brighten until they become the same sickening shade of gold they usually are. He looks down at Rey with open disgust.</p><p> </p><p>“Pick her up,” he instructs the other Nightsisters, who hurry to obey. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s time to return home.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When they return to the dark surface of the moon, with not a sliver of the sun-struck part of the surface in sight, the King immediately leads them into the castle through the yawning arch of the doorway. Ventress appears then, her skin and shaved scalp as ghostly white as her dress, the hollows of her cheeks like craters; her eyes glow in the darkness like a cat’s.</p><p> </p><p>“It is ready,” she says, her voice a raspy whisper.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” the King mutters in response, brushing soundlessly past her. “Blindfold her.”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii tugs on Rey’s dirt-smudged sleeve; Rey numbly bends down, and Zorii reaches up to tie a piece of cloth around Rey’s head, blocking her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Now take her,” the King commands no one in particular, “and follow me.”</p><p> </p><p>The older Nightsisters fall in step behind Rey. Zorii walks on ahead, her little hand guiding Rey deeper into the castle. </p><p> </p><p>Rey can feel the distant echo of the sun’s light, the ghost of warmth over her now-chilled skin, the feel of grass between her bare toes. She can feel it all, just for a moment. But the Nightsisters and their King lead her deep into the castle, lower and lower into the crust of the moon, and as they descend, she feels the presence of the sun and of her memories fading steadily, until only the cold and the darkness seem real. </p><p> </p><p>They walk on and on, in silence, taking turn after turn until Rey’s sense of direction is completely muddled. The others make hardly a sound, but Rey’s shuffling feet disturb the dust on the ground audibly, reminding her with every step of how little she belongs here. They walk until the sound fills her mind; they walk for an unknowable length of time.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, Rey hears the groan of a heavy stone door being unlocked and opened. Zorii’s hand guides her gently through the doorway, before abruptly disappearing. The door groans shut, the lock clicks into place.</p><p> </p><p>Rey raises her hands and removes her blindfold, and is met with complete, utter darkness. She reaches in front of her, groping blindly as she takes hesitating steps, until she finds the featureless surface of the door.</p><p> </p><p>“Get to work,” the King whispers through the door, his voice like the shrill clang of bells in the stillness. Then, like a ghost, he and the Nightsisters are silently gone.</p><p> </p><p><em> Work? </em> Rey turns and gropes her way along all four walls of the tiny room, before venturing towards the center of the room. She nearly collides with something tall and slender; she gingerly feels along its surface, confused at first by the cold, smooth, curving surfaces, the long, slender rods and delicate instruments, the mobile frames—and then she realizes. It’s her old loom.</p><p> </p><p>If there is a loom in this cell, then—</p><p> </p><p>She finds the wall again and gropes her way along it, searching the smooth surface with hurried fingers. She reaches up on her toes, pushing her fingers against the seam between wall and ceiling, searching desperately. There must be an opening leading out to the expanse. There must be—</p><p> </p><p>And she finds it abruptly: the thinnest of slits in the wall, between two slats of rock. She sticks the tips of her fingers into the opening eagerly, and is relieved to feel the slightest whisper of light, just barely within her reach.</p><p> </p><p>It’s at this moment when she realizes the true severity of the situation. She imagines Kylo, suffocating somewhere in utter darkness, an unimaginable distance from the nearest sun; abandoned, left to suffer and die. She thinks of the interminable silence and solitude that now stretch out before her, the eternal darkness, with nothing but the loom and the distant, wispy presence of the sun to occupy her.</p><p> </p><p>She feels her way back to her loom and sits down before it, silently; and, eventually, because she knows that the King will send someone to hound her if she doesn’t begin working, she calls to her fingers a strand of sunlight, barely visible as it flutters through the crack in the wall, and sets to work weaving starlight as bitter tears course down her cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>There has always been light in Kylo, albeit the faintest spark. Even Luke, in acknowledging the struggle between the light and the darkness within Kylo, indirectly acknowledged the existence of the light within Kylo.</p><p> </p><p>Kylo tries to hold onto this fact as he writhes in utter darkness, so dark that he cannot even see his hand when he holds it to his eyes; so dark that he doubts, for a mad moment, that he ever had a body to begin with. </p><p> </p><p>No. He needs to hold it together. It's difficult, as the panic and dejection rise, and as memories of the sun and of home and of Rey seem to slip through his fingers like vapor. But he gasps a few breaths to calm himself, and closes his eyes, and reaches inward for a part of himself that he’s kept buried for as long as he can.</p><p> </p><p>It takes time to peel back the layers, and every layer removed feels like a shedding of his carefully self-built identity, of his conscious abandonment of the light. But he continues on, digging deep into the part of himself that has always lost, always felt weak, and was always underestimated by everyone, even his own mother.</p><p> </p><p>He finds a kernel of light, a mustard seed’s worth; he cups his hands carefully around it and blows on it, trying to spread its flame. It brightens hesitantly, and he almost clenches down on it, out of pure instinct; but with an effort, he keeps his palms open, and he watches as the light slowly threads through his body, hair-thin strands of luminance in the otherwise impenetrable darkness. </p><p> </p><p>Then, suddenly, just as he feels the light rising to meet the dark, something steps in its way, stopping its growth; someone’s hands clamp down over his. He looks up quickly, and comes face to face with Luke, who scowls at him in a startlingly hateful way, his bristly eyebrows turned down at a sharp angle, the corners of his mouth pulled taut. </p><p> </p><p>Kylo doesn’t recognize the old man at first; it’s been millennia since he last saw—and centuries since he last tried to picture—Luke’s face. Here, in this void, the scowling old man that confronts him is startlingly life-like. So much so that Kylo forgets where he is, for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>He gapes at his uncle. “What… What are you doing here?”</p><p> </p><p>Luke doesn’t respond for a long moment; just glares at Kylo with venom. Finally, Luke’s mouth parts, his eyes flashing bright white.</p><p> </p><p>“There is a darkness in you,” Luke says, his voice sounding like Leia’s. Kylo shrinks back immediately at the words, and the voice that had uttered them, but Luke’s grip is unrelenting.</p><p> </p><p>“There is <em> only </em>darkness in you,” Luke snarls.</p><p> </p><p>And then, his face morphs into Rey’s, his wrinkles and his bristly facial hair and his scowl melting away and smoothing out into perfect, pearly skin, his eyes widening and darkening into a hazel brown. She squeezes Kylo’s hands gently, her smile sad.</p><p> </p><p>“You can’t save me,” she sighs. </p><p> </p><p>He pulls her close, almost whimpering at the feel of her in his arms, cool and soft and silk-like against his scarred skin and rough clothing; he buries his nose into her neck, searching out the Nightsister mark on the back of her neck, the musky, dewy scent of her skin.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right,” she whispers, threading her fingers through his hair, holding him close. “It’s done. You can stay here with me, for all eternity, and rest, here in the darkness…”</p><p> </p><p>Darkness. What happened to his kernel of light? He’d let it go as soon as he’d seen Rey. He pulls away from her immediately, and part of his mind screams at him that she isn’t real, none of this is real; but she reaches for him so sweetly, and her embrace is like a sweet poison…</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Rest</em>,” she whispers, her voice a thin hiss in the darkness.</p><p> </p><p>No. <em> No. </em>This isn’t real. </p><p> </p><p>He takes a shuddering breath and seeks out the seed of light within himself once again, squeezing his eyes shut. Rey squirms in his arms, her hisses rising into shrieks that echo and disappear into the darkness. He whispers apology after apology, holding her tighter as he calls upon the light within him to dispel her; the seedling grows and grows steadily until it feels like he’s holding the sun beneath his skin.</p><p> </p><p>The image of Rey trembles in his arms, and then she’s melting away into the darkness, rejoining the thing that had generated her in the first place. The sun bursts forth from his mouth, fizzles the tears that had leaked from his eyes; for a moment, he feels confusion and fear, and he tries to wrestle his way back to the comfort of the darkness. But the light floods him, flushing through every synapse, every hair, every fiber of every one of his tired muscles. </p><p> </p><p>And then, he feels something tear open in the void. A strange, fluttering pulse throbs steadily in the air, faintly, like wings beating in the distance. He reaches a hand forward, feeling for a hole in the prison, and the sun is flooding him from both without and within, and he takes a hesitant step forward, and suddenly he’s collapsing on the earth in front of his hut, the sun high in the sky, the world flooded with light. </p><p> </p><p>With an effort, his head spinning and his vision littered with strange splotches, he rolls himself onto his back and just lies there, gasping for breath, for real air, as he feels the light seep out of him, back into the tiny kernel it had been folded into all this time. And he stares at the sky, afraid that if he ever closed his eyes again, it would disappear forever.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, he feels steady enough to attempt standing; once he makes his way shakily to his feet, he stumbles into his hut, throwing the door covering aside, ignoring for the moment the startled lowing of the cows. He scans the tiny room, double-checking each dark corner, throwing back the covers of his blanket. No Chewie. No Rey.</p><p> </p><p>He makes his way back outside, squinting against the impossible bright burn of the sun, and circles around his hut, checking the paddock, the lean-to. Still no Chewie, and still no Rey.</p><p> </p><p>He strays out towards the spot where he’d challenged the Nightkeeper King, and finds a wide patch of blackened grass, and the battered hilt of his sword.</p><p> </p><p>His hopes of the entire ordeal being a dream are dashed; he is forced to acknowledge that Chewie and Rey really are gone. He sits quietly on the ground, too tired to feel anger, and too grief-stricken to feel vengeful; the sun beats on the back of his head, warm and yet punishing. Alone once again in this exile, and more confused than ever about who he is, he hides his face from the world, his tears dripping down into the dry earth.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kylo loses count of the days as they pass. The end of summer rises like a silent ghost from the earth, reaching its invisible fingers out to turn the hardy leaves of the squat trees into rich shades of orange, brown, and red; it breathes a chill across the land that sharpens the air. Usually, it’s a change that he welcomes; he relishes the fading heat of summer, the anticipation of the cold.</p><p> </p><p>This time, as the heat of summer fades, it feels as though Rey’s lingering presence fades as well. </p><p> </p><p>He’s beginning to forget what she looks like; was her hair a true, inky black when he’d first found her, or was her hair always just slightly touched with brown? And were her eyes truly like gray glass, like the undisturbed surface of a lake in the early morning, or had there always been just the slightest flash of golden hazel to them? And her smile—where exactly on her cheeks did her dimples appear when she smiled? And when she walked, stomping along in her too-large sandals, did she stare in wonder at the grass and the flowers on the ground, or did she prefer to watch the shifting clouds overhead?</p><p> </p><p>He sits outside, in the shade of a short tree, huddled away from the sunlight, watching the cows. He sits in the company of nothing but gnawing emotions and slowly-fading memories, dried tears and empty spaces. </p><p> </p><p>The first night after he returned from the void, he’d lain in bed, unable to sleep, until a slash of white in the corner of the room caught his eye.</p><p> </p><p>He’d been determined to hold in his grief, to focus on sleep. The loss was—still is—too much to bear, too much to even think about, and he’d known, tossing sleeplessly on his half of the mattress, that if he wanted any chance at gathering the pieces of himself back up and putting together a plan to save Rey, he would need every ounce of his strength and focus.</p><p> </p><p>But the sight of her white dress, hanging on its hook, untouched since she’d first slipped out of it that first night, had been enough to send him reeling over the edge of his self-discipline. He remembers getting to his feet and making his way slowly to where the garment had hung, removing it from its hook with numb fingers, and hesitantly pressing it to his cheek, his nose, his mouth.</p><p> </p><p>And he’d found, to his utter despair, that her dress had retained its cool, soothing, silk-like feel, and that the salty-sweet smell of her skin was still captured in its folds; and he’d felt something deep within himself crack, as though this unexpected reminder of her was even more devastating than her violent kidnapping, her sudden departure.</p><p> </p><p>He remembers mouthing her name, unwilling to break the silence of the night. He remembers climbing back into his bed and cuddling the bundle of fabric close to his chest, burying his nose in the scent of her. He’d thought of long brown hair and hazel eyes and a radiant smile; he’d thought of her darkness and his light, her light and his darkness; he’d thought of the feel of her skin under his lips, the way she’d felt in his arms, how they’d fit together, how they’d <em> belonged </em>together. </p><p> </p><p>How happy he’d been to find someone torn between the light and the darkness. Someone like him. </p><p> </p><p>And he’d realized, then, that he had no way of even approaching the Nightkeeper King’s palace without being hewn down and sealed away by a Nightsister, or the King himself. He isn’t strong enough in either the darkness or the light to face down a creature of pure darkness like the King.</p><p> </p><p>And a part of him had reached out, begging to be allowed to grieve, to cry, to hurt; and he’d sunk into the cold, comforting darkness, giving in.</p><p> </p><p>And now, with every passing day, the garish burn of the sun is a double-edged reminder of his exile from his home and his inability to help Rey.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>The whirring and clicking of the loom fills every interminable minute as it crawls by; her fingers are beginning to forget how to do anything other than weave starlight. The memory of the sun, of Kylo’s rare smiles, of the hut nestled in the heath with the cows chewing placidly and Chewie running lighthearted circles around the paddock, are all beginning to fade. All that remains are the churning of the loom in this tiny cage, and the whisper of sunlight as she calls it to her fingertips through the slit in the moonrock wall, and the cold throb of starlight as it leaves her loom and floats out into the void.</p><p> </p><p>And because of how impossibly small the crack in the wall is, she can only create so much starlight at once, and is forced to temper her use of the loom just so. At first, she’d found it grating to bend to such a restraint, used as she was to weaving starlight under the open void; but as the time wears on, unspooling from hours into days into perhaps even years—she’s no longer sure—she can feel her strength and forbearance waning steadily. She thinks of Kylo fleetingly, in bursts of color and emotion; but her memories of him seem to evade her, preferring to melt away into the darkness of the cell, crouching in corners where they can’t prick her heart.</p><p> </p><p>As the time passes, a growing nausea coils in her stomach, and an odd ache develops in the front of her head, and a gnawing sensation—an intense desire, so strong that she sometimes wants to dash her head against the wall to rid herself of it—spreads throughout her body, filling every nerve with an unbearable restlessness, demanding more and more of her attention until it’s all she can think about. And sometimes, her skin breaks out suddenly in sweat, soaking through her dress, running down her arms, her back, the tips of her hair.</p><p> </p><p>She craves something—something she can’t identify at first. As she spins starlight, she wonders what it could be. It’s certainly a new sensation; it isn’t something she’s ever experienced before. </p><p> </p><p>Then, one day, in a moment of desperation, with the ache of longing throbbing under her skin, she summons a wisp of sunlight and just stares at it, twisting it in her fingers, unwilling to process it through her loom and wring the sun’s golden warmth from it. She thinks of her days spent under the abundance of the sun, the days she spent becoming a daughter of light and earth. She thinks of Kylo, his face now a blur, but the memory of his presence still painfully clear.</p><p> </p><p>She knows she would be punished. She knows the King would be endlessly displeased—enraged, even.</p><p> </p><p>But she summons another wisp of sunlight, almost too faint to be seen, and winds it around the first strand. She summons another, and does the same. And another. And another. </p><p> </p><p>Once the wisp of sunlight has grown into a long, thick banner, she unhesitantly wraps it around her neck and shoulders, leaning her cheek into its intoxicating warmth. Everything in her rises to its embrace, and her dimmed mind lifts from its stupor, and suddenly she remembers with terrible clarity every strand of grass, every trickle of water, every lantern in the sky on that enchanted evening. She remembers every angle and plane of Kylo’s body, the feel of his hands, his lips pressed to the back of her neck. </p><p> </p><p>She remembers the sight of the sun on that first morning, filling the sky with miraculous color, stretching its fingers of light across the sleeping face of the earth. </p><p> </p><p>That’s what it is. Not Chewie, not Earth, not even Kylo; the sun. She longs for the sun. And somehow she <em> knows </em> that without the sun’s light, she will soon die.</p><p> </p><p>She shoots up from her seat, knocking the loom onto its side, the banner of sunlight exploding into shimmering sparks that quickly die out. She hurries to the wall and reaches up for the crack, pressing her fingers to it, as a parched person would reach for water. </p><p> </p><p>She thinks she can hear running footsteps, but she pushes the thought of it from her mind for the time being. There’s no way she can break through the walls of her prison, no matter how much sunlight she summons; there’s no way she can summon enough light to tear through the crack in the wall, not without tearing herself to pieces.</p><p> </p><p>So she does the next best thing.</p><p> </p><p>She closes her eyes for a breath; the air around her stills; and then, she pushes every ounce of light she’d absorbed from the sun during her time on Earth through the crack in the wall. She feels the rush of the sun’s light as it leaves her, taking with it its life force, its warmth, its colors. She keeps her eyes shut and pushes more and more of the sun’s light from her until she feels like little more than a charred lantern.</p><p> </p><p>The footsteps clatter to a stop outside her door, and she hears the slam of rock against rock. Someone whisper-shouts her name, and it’s the last thing she knows before the darkness closes in.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“Y-Your Highness?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, Mitaka?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um… Uh… Have you seen—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. Okay. Are… Are you planning on—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh. I suppose I should let the others know—?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“...Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Mitaka.”</p><p> </p><p>“N-no problem, your Highness.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” someone hisses, struggling with Rey’s slumped-over body. “Rey, he’s going to be here any second, and he’s not going to be happy. We need to get out of here, <em> now </em>. Rey? Rey!”</p><p> </p><p>Rey is slow to rouse from her faint; and when she comes to fully, she wishes she hadn’t. Her limbs feel simultaneously like moonrock and like clouds; her pounding head makes it impossible to think.</p><p> </p><p>She looks up at the person urging her to her feet.</p><p> </p><p>“Zorii?” She mumbles.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, it’s me,” her sister whispers distractedly as she tries to get Rey’s feet underneath her. “We need to get you as far away from here as possible.”</p><p> </p><p>“Zorii, I… I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt—”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right, Rey, but listen, we <em> really </em>need to get going—”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s nowhere that’s far enough,” Rey counters as Zorii ushers her out of the room that had been her prison for so long.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we’re going to have to try,” Zorii insists nervously. “Father knew as soon as you started collecting sunlight, and he was mad enough when that happened. And now, with the stars…”</p><p> </p><p>Rey frowns. “The stars?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you not know?” Zorii asks incredulously as they wind through the dark halls beneath the moon’s crust. “Just now, you used sunlight to create a bridge of stars.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey stops in her tracks.</p><p> </p><p>“I did what?” Rey asks.</p><p> </p><p>“You created a bridge of stars. Well, I say ‘stars’... It’s really a bunch of small points of sunlight, stretching from the moon to the Earth. It’s colorful and warm, not like any starlight I’ve seen before… How did you do it?”</p><p> </p><p>“I…” Rey thinks as Zorii ushers her on; she stumbles along, her feet moving on their own. “I don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>They round a corner and almost slam into Phasma and Bazine. </p><p> </p><p>Rey stumbles back a step, still extremely weak; she presses her back against the cold stone wall of the hallway to steady herself. Zorii, trembling and pale with fright, nevertheless places her little body between Rey and the other two Nightsisters.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey? Zorii?” Bazine whispers; Phasma looks silently between the two with an unreadable expression.</p><p> </p><p>“Let us through,” Zorii squeaks.</p><p> </p><p>“Relax,” Phasma says, rolling her eyes. To Bazine, she mutters: “I guess pipsqueak beat us to the punch.”</p><p> </p><p>“Punch?” Zorii echoes, looking between Bazine and Phasma with wide eyes. “What punch?”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you getting Rey out of here?” Bazine demands.</p><p> </p><p>Zorii draws herself up. “Yes, and there isn’t anything you can do—</p><p> </p><p>“I said <em> relax </em>,” Phasma drawls. “We’re here to help.”</p><p> </p><p>The walls tremble; nothing more than a subtle shiver. But Zorii, her nerves already worn down to the nubs, jumps violently.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” Phasma says, hurrying forward towards Rey. “We don’t have much time.”</p><p> </p><p>She and Bazine stop on either side of Rey and gently lift her up in their arms, bearing her slight weight easily between them; Rey wraps her arms around her sisters’ necks to steady herself, too surprised and tired to speak.</p><p> </p><p>“You take the rear,” Phasma barks at Zorii as she and Bazine carry Rey onward. “Let us know if you see anything.”</p><p> </p><p>“O—o—” Zorii stutters as she trips along behind them, eyes still wide. “Okay!”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Kylo looks up at the sound of thundering hooves. He isn’t really surprised to see who it is.</p><p> </p><p>Leia is older now, visibly so. But her bright brown eyes glint with the same curiously-mischievous wisdom that they always did when he was young. As she dismounts and nears him, the glow of her skin fading, her smile is warm, but tentative.</p><p> </p><p>Behind her, six more fiery horses descend from the sky, their manes and tails like tongues of white-hot flame, and hit the ground on ironshod hooves, clattering to a halt; five young men dismount and stand at a distance, one of them placing a hand on the riderless horse’s bridle. They watch their Queen and her exiled son with curious, attentive silence.</p><p> </p><p>“Ben,” she murmurs as she nears him, and before he can correct her, she’s hugging him.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s so good to see you,” she says as she draws back at length, peering up into his face with an observant eye. He squirms under her discerning gaze, and looks away.</p><p> </p><p>“You were the one who exiled me,” he mutters sullenly.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” the Queen replies. “We have much to discuss… But this is neither the time nor the place.”</p><p> </p><p>She glances around his arm, at the foot of the bridge of light. </p><p> </p><p>The moment he’d felt it, he’d hurried out of his hut in the dead of night and watched with astonishment as sparks of light fell from the moon like rainfall, some in clusters, others in distant, prickling solitude. At first, he’d thought they were stars, or pinpricks of starlight; but as he watched, the sparks took on the subtlest of colors, variegated and wild and warm and beautiful—unlike any stars he’d ever seen.</p><p> </p><p>He’d watched as the stars formed a wide, ropey line, one end of which seemed to touch down somewhere nearby, and the other end of which receded into the night sky towards the moon. He’d run all the way to Nymeve, borrowed the first horse he laid eyes on, and, ignoring the uproar in the small village as people tried to make sense of the sudden appearance of the star-like lights, he’d ridden hard in the direction of the strange sight. When the horse gave out, he’d dismounted without a second thought, abandoning the horse, and continued on by foot, passing the edge of the world, further and further on through the void.</p><p> </p><p>And here he now stood, at the foot of the bridge of borrowed sunlight, certain that it would lead him to Rey.</p><p> </p><p>“This is no natural occurrence, of course,” the Queen muses as she steps around Kylo to examine the bridge. “Someone placed it here. It isn’t starlight; it’s made of pure sunlight. But it wasn’t placed here by one of mine. A Skywalker wouldn’t be able to build a bridge into the Nightkeeper King’s realm.”</p><p> </p><p>She turns to him. “And I assume you didn’t put this here.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I didn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“But,” she observes, nearing him once again, her bronze face thoughtful, her eyes flashing bright white, “you know who did.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>She places a hand on his arm, bringing her face close to his as she examines him. This time, he doesn’t avert his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“You’ve been crying,” she says softly, and the iron of her face melts into something vulnerable, something maternal.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he whispers.</p><p> </p><p>“My poor boy,” she murmurs, and she folds him in another hug.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t look so good,” Phasma comments to Rey as they hurry up the hallway. They’ve been ascending to the surface of the moon as quickly as they can manage, but Bazine and Phasma, unused to having to carry someone for so long, have had to take frequent breaks. </p><p> </p><p>“What she means,” Bazine amends, “is that you were tan as a mortal when we found you, all flesh-colored and brown-eyed… But you’re fading, Rey. Your hair—it’s fading at the ends.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey looks down at her hair with mild interest, and sees that Bazine is right. In fact, the edges of her body are shimmering ever so slightly, and if she looks closely, she’s able to see the floor and the walls and the arms of her sisters through her skin.</p><p> </p><p>“I need the sun,” she croaks, tightening her arms around her sisters. “I need the light. Without it, I—I—”</p><p> </p><p>“We’ll get you there, don’t worry,” Phasma says in a low voice as she shares a concerned look with Bazine.</p><p> </p><p>Up ahead, a white figure suddenly appears, stepping into view from a hidden alcove.</p><p> </p><p>“Guys,” Zorii hisses, screeching to a stop. Bazine and Phasma stop as well, and with muttered curses, edge backwards from the ghost-like figure. But it’s too late; the figure floats toward them, barely touching the ground. </p><p> </p><p>As Ventress nears, her cat-like eyes flashing in the darkness, the four other Nightsisters find themselves backed up against the end of the hallway.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay. Just put me down and get out of here,” Rey urges them, squirming as insistently as she can. “She’s just here for me.”</p><p> </p><p>Phasma and Bazine’s faces are taut with readiness, and Zorii trembles like a leaf behind them, but none of them abandon her. The cluster of sisters watch as their oldest sister stops a few paces in front of them. </p><p> </p><p>Ventress eyes the group with an unreadable expression, her unblinking gaze shifting from sister to sister in turn. When her eyes finally rest on Rey, taking in Rey’s gaunt appearance and her shimmering edges and the defiant look in her eyes, her expression morphs, ever so slightly.</p><p> </p><p>And then, to everyone’s shock, she steps to the side, out of their way.</p><p> </p><p>“Hurry,” she rasps, glancing down the hallway quickly. “She’s dying.”</p><p> </p><p>The other four gape at her. </p><p> </p><p>“<em> Hurry </em>,” she repeats, gesturing urgently. Phasma glances at Bazine, who shrugs, and they edge around Ventress cautiously, half-expecting her to lash out at them as they pass, before hurrying on their way.</p><p> </p><p>“What was that?” Zorii whispers, sticking close to them from behind, chancing a glance back at Ventress. Ventress gives them one last look before turning a corner in the hallway and disappearing.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” Rey mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t like it,” Bazine grits out, adjusting her hold on Rey.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t have a choice,” Phasma points out, already over it. “Let’s just press on.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>“And she turned out to be a Nightsister?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“...You’re <em> sure </em>, Ben?”</p><p> </p><p>“I saw the mark on the back of her neck, and her father and sisters abducted her from under my nose. Yes, I’m sure.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” Leia puffs, her eyebrows rising towards her hairline as she struggles to take in Kylo’s story. “That’s… That’s certainly <em> something. </em> Some sort of thing…”</p><p> </p><p>She paces a few steps back and forth in front of Kylo, seemingly deep in thought. One of the Skywalkers who’d accompanied her, his skin like unburnt charcoal, steps forward, casting an unsure glance at Kylo before addressing the Queen.</p><p> </p><p>“Your Highness, if we are to cross the bridge into the Nightkeeper King’s realm, we need to go now,” he says with quiet urgency. “We’re not sure how long the structure will stand.”</p><p> </p><p>“It will stand,” Leia murmurs.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Finn frowns, confused.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t you see?” Leia says, turning to face her five companions, a smile slowly lighting up her face. “A bridge built by someone who embodies both the dark and the light—a bridge that we always thought was impossible to build.”</p><p> </p><p>Her grin is radiant.</p><p> </p><p>“This could mean a new chapter in our relationship with the Nightkeepers,” she continues, something like awe filling her voice. “This bridge… It could change everything. So we must see to it that it stands.”</p><p> </p><p>She turns to look at Kylo.</p><p> </p><p>“And we must see to it that Rey lives.”</p><p> </p><p>He stares at his mother as though she’d slapped him.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Leia chides as she strides toward her horse. “Even if Rey isn’t the one who created this bridge, I’d still do everything in my power to save her. Mitaka, give Ben his horse.”</p><p> </p><p>“But…” Kylo stumbles after his mother, barely acknowledging Mitaka as the shorter, nervous young man sidles up to him, leading a placid mare. “But why?”</p><p> </p><p>Leia swings herself up into the saddle of her stallion; the giant beast of an animal paws restlessly at the ground and prances a few steps to the side, clearly eager to be off.</p><p> </p><p>“Because,” Leia says, smirking cheekily, “my son is in love with her.”</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>They make it to the entrance of the palace and screech to a stop, staring at the sight before them.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh…” Bazine breathes.</p><p> </p><p>“My goodness,” Zorii exclaims, overwhelmed. “I mean, I saw it from a window, but up close—!”</p><p> </p><p>Rey stares at her own handiwork.</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t look so surprised,” Phasma mutters as they stagger another few steps towards the bridge of twinkling lights. “You’re the one who put this here.”</p><p> </p><p>“I…” Rey stutters as she stares at the river of hundreds of thousands—millions, perhaps—of pricks of sunlight that seem to vibrate with vitality. Unlike the cold, distant white light of the stars, the light of these “stars” flicker with the subtlest of greens and blues, deep reds and bright, clear yellows, rich purples and everything in between. It’s unlike anything she’s seen, much less anything she’d ever thought herself capable of creating.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the sunlight,” Phasma explains, her voice a touch softer. “All the sunlight that you absorbed when you were on Earth. And I really mean <em> all </em>of it; this is an insane amount of light, and you look like you’re on the verge of being swallowed up by a black hole.”</p><p> </p><p>“I need—” Rey breaks off, her voice failing her; her head lolls backward, suddenly too heavy for her neck to support.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to get her into the sun’s light,” Zorii cries, hurrying to support Rey’s back and neck with her little hands.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s no way we can get there in time,” Bazine huffs. “We should have gone to the gateway near Mare Imbrium—”</p><p> </p><p>She breaks off suddenly, her eyes wide. Phasma opens her mouth to say something, but Bazine holds up a hand, her face gone taut. The other Nightsisters fall silent and listen, and they hear it as well; the distant thundering of hooves. Rey’s heart rises inexplicably in her chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Skywalkers,” Phasma hisses, and, on pure instinct, begins backpedaling towards the entrance they’d just come out of. Her pale eyes flash black; her armor begins to creep around her body like a dark cloud, wrapping around her platinum locks, her pale shoulders and arms. Bazine follows, her expression contorted instantly with fear; twin black clouds engulf her hands, gathering at her fingertips and sharpening into claws.</p><p> </p><p>“No!” Zorii exclaims, tugging on Phasma’s sleeve. “They’re exactly what we need.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you insane?” Bazine hisses, trying to drag Zorii along. “They’re here to kill us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wait,” Rey whispers, too drained to raise her voice. “Wait.” </p><p> </p><p>But none of her sisters seem to hear her, caught up in their whispered argument. And as the stalemate prolongs, the sound of hooves draws closer and closer, echoing between the pricks of light. It sounds like three—no, maybe four—horses. No, maybe even more than that. Rey’s head swims as she tries to focus, and her head lolls back once again.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey?” Zorii says, cupping Rey’s head with her hands; she turns Rey’s face gently towards her, and sees that the older Nightsister’s eyes are closed and unmoving.</p><p> </p><p>Phasma and Bazine stare at Rey, then at each other.</p><p> </p><p>Beside them, a rapidly glowing surge of light explodes; the surface of this area of the moon, having never touched sunlight before, quivers as it is bathed in light. A cluster of horses hurtles up over the winding surface of the bridge, hooves flashing, eyes and manes and tails blazing; they hit the surface of the moon with graceless, bone-rattling power, and clatter towards the four Nightsisters, who, blinded by the sudden burst of light, fall back with a collective cry.</p><p> </p><p>Six of the seven horses slow at the shouted commands of their riders, flicking their tails and kicking up the dust on the surface of the moon as they shift about nervously, unused to the cold and the darkness of the moon. </p><p> </p><p>Zorii squints against the blinding light, wondering if this was what seeing the sun for the first time was like for Rey; she tries her best to make out the different forms astride the horses, and is just able to make out five young men with skin like bronze and eyes like flame, and a petite, slightly stoop-shouldered, older woman, her long hair piled up on her head, almost like a sort of crown. Her horse, massive for someone her height, paws at the dust and snorts. </p><p> </p><p>And Zorii watches as the seventh rider, a hulking young man with raven hair, sweeps past the other riders and pushes on towards the Nightsisters without stopping, his eyes flashing white.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s him,” Zorii shouts, pointing at the fast-advancing man. “Rey’s friend; that’s him. Maybe he’ll help us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Are you insane?!” Phasma shouts back, trying to put herself between the newly-arrived Skywalkers and the still-unconscious Rey; Bazine has released Rey and is running at full speed back towards the castle entrance. “He’s here to kill her—!”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii, having had enough of words, wrenches Rey from Phasma’s clutch. She braces herself for Rey’s weight, but, to her surprise, Rey seems to weigh little more than starlight itself. And Zorii realizes, to her horror, that when she turns to face the bridge of stars, she can see some of the brightest stars through Rey’s skin.</p><p> </p><p>She stumbles forward, slowly at first, then faster. She feels Phasma’s hand on her shoulder and shakes it off violently, almost dropping Rey. She meets the horseman part of the way between the foot of the bridge and the entrance of the castle.</p><p> </p><p>They stop before each other, staring at each other with hesitation. </p><p> </p><p>After a long pause, during which no one moves or speaks, Zorii swallows down the rising swell of nausea in her stomach, and lifts Rey up towards the man.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>Kylo looks down first at the young girl, barely in her adolescence, a gnarled scar running down her face through her right eye, her other eye wide and unblinking with mistrust and fear. He remembers seeing her on the night when the King arrived outside his hut.</p><p> </p><p>He then looks at Rey, at her closed and purple-ringed eyes, the near-invisible tips of her hair and fingers and small, bare toes. The white shift dress she wears seems more real, more corporeal, than her body.</p><p> </p><p>“Please,” the younger Nightsister whispers; a tear trails down her pale cheek from her good eye. “Please, take her to the Light.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo wordlessly bends down from atop his horse and takes Rey into his arms, momentarily aghast at the weightlessness of her body. He tucks her into the crook of his arm, nestling her against his chest; he turns his horse and spurs it on mercilessly; and he gallops off, back towards the bridge, back towards the light.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>The first thing Rey feels as awareness returns to her is the sensation of burning.</p><p> </p><p>She gasps for air, writhing in the iron-hard restraints that someone’s put her in. The restraints only seem to tighten against her struggles, and a rush of panic fills her confused mind. Then, almost as quickly as it had arisen, the burning sensation subsides; her skin cools to a comforting, buzzing warmth, and it reminds her of the days she’d spent on Earth, during a chapter of her life that feels impossibly remote, and she wonders if she’s finally died.</p><p> </p><p>The grip around her loosens as she ceases her struggling. There’s a voice speaking soothingly to her, distant, like wind skimming over the heath. Something touches her cheek—warm and soft, and smelling of—</p><p> </p><p>Cow manure?</p><p> </p><p>Her eyes flutter open, and she’s blinded by the sea of stars, by the beacon that is the sun.</p><p> </p><p>She looks above her, at the face slowly coming into focus in the wash of light, and she almost doesn’t recognize the bronzed skin, the shock of raven hair, the eyes that flash white before cooling to a bottomless obsidian.</p><p> </p><p>“Kylo?” She murmurs; to her chagrin, her voice sounds muffled, and her tongue feels like a block of moonrock. But Kylo seems satisfied, and silently pulls her closer to his chest, tucking her head under his chin. </p><p> </p><p>The animal standing silently behind them on the bridge—a Hellhorse, she’s heard it called, although she doubts that’s what the Skywalkers call them—stands patiently, shifting its attention leisurely between the pricks of light beneath its hooves and the sun itself in the distance.</p><p> </p><p>When she manages to pull away and look up at Kylo, his skin has cooled and faded to its usual paleness, and she realizes that he’s wearing his usual ratty shirt and trousers and his walking boots, and that his face is smeared with dried mud and sweat. He looks as though he’d left his herd on the heath and hurried to the bridge as soon as he saw it appear in the sky.</p><p> </p><p>He looks like <em> Kylo </em>. And it hits her that he’s here, he’s really here, and he’s holding her on this weightless bridge of sunlight, and he must have traveled fast and without stopping to rest if he was able to make it to her this quickly, and—</p><p> </p><p>“Shh,” he whispers tenderly, smoothing down the back of her hair, running his fingers up and down her arms and back, rubbing warmth and corporeality back into her. “Don’t cry.”</p><p> </p><p>“I thought I was dead,” she mumbles, leaving wet spots on his shirt as she buries her face in it.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re not,” Kylo assures her.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she says distractedly. “I just—I just put my hands to the wall, and...”</p><p> </p><p>“Your time on Earth with me,” Kylo says. “It must have…”</p><p> </p><p>“I had no idea that such a thing was possible,” Rey mutters, still disbelieving that all of this is real. “I didn’t know what it was. But I could feel it. Do you know what I mean? Sometime while I was on Earth, with you, the light became a part of me. And when I was in that prison… I felt it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Prison?” Kylo echoes, his voice roughening into a growl.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all right. It’s over now.” She turns her face to the sun and closes her eyes, and sighs as she feels its heat caress her face, like the hand of an old friend. With every passing moment, she can feel something in her that had worn away in the dark prison slowly regrow and regain its original shape, its presence, its warmth. All that time she’d spent under the sun, embracing its light and its warmth, had planted in her a curious sort of reliance on that very light and warmth, to the point where being locked away in a lightless room, which would not have been an issue before her trip to Earth, was now impossible for her to endure.</p><p> </p><p>They watch as the earth and the sun shift slowly in the sky, inching along their usual paths. The monumentally slow, routine movement plays out with silent stoicism, majestic and miraculous and sobering. It reminds them of the natural cycle of things, and how far they’ve diverged from that cycle. It reminds them of the conflict and chaos behind them, the bridge of sunlight leading impossibly into the moon, the Hellhorses waiting at the gate of the Nightkeeper King.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you feel better?” Kylo asks after a long moment of quiet. </p><p> </p><p>Rey watches as the earth paces along slowly, spinning as it goes—that distant globe of blue and white that had so bewitched her, and still does. She wishes this moment could last forever.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” she whispers.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey, I… I’m sorry that I didn’t come for you sooner.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, Kylo,” she whispers, pressing her hand weakly to his chest. “It’s all right.”</p><p> </p><p>“I was afraid,” he admits bitterly. “I didn’t think I could do it on my own. I’m only here because the Queen arrived at the other end of the bridge, and offered me a horse…”</p><p> </p><p>“Your mother is here?” Rey says, eyes suddenly going wide. “The Skywalker Queen is here? On the moon?”</p><p> </p><p>“Along with her cavalcade,” Kylo deadpans.</p><p> </p><p>“The <em> Five </em> are here?” Rey exclaims, nearly bolting out of Kylo’s arms. “We need to go back; they’ll tear each other apart!”</p><p> </p><p>“We could leave,” Kylo hisses urgently, his voice suddenly sharp, his expression dark. “We could go out into the void, and never turn back…”</p><p> </p><p>“They wouldn’t stop searching until they found us,” Rey says softly. “You know that.”</p><p> </p><p>“We could try,” Kylo counters, his voice taking on a tone of pleading.</p><p> </p><p>“We’d never stop running.”</p><p> </p><p>“So you’d rather go back?” He asks incredulously, hooking his finger under her chin to force her eyes up to his. “You’d rather return to your tyrant of a Father and be locked away forever, or even killed?”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t leave my sisters,” Rey says quietly. “They helped me get this far. If I run, I don’t know what Father would do to them.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo is silent for a moment. “If you don’t want to leave them behind, I understand that. But if anyone tries to hurt you again, I <em> will </em>retaliate.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey places a hand on the back of his neck, his Skywalker mark still pleasantly warm against her cool palm, and leans up to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. He accepts it quietly with his eyes closed, head bowed.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” she whispers, and smiles as he opens his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>When they return to the gate, the Nightkeepers and the Skywalkers are in the midst of a tense standoff. The King has emerged, standing at the top of the long flight of stairs, his eyes invisible. The Nightkeepers are outnumbered, with the King and three Nightsisters facing down the Queen and her Five. But the King appears unperturbed, and the three Nightsisters, with the exception of Zorii, look ready to fight.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone looks up as Rey and Kylo ride over the swell of the bridge. Rey jumps down from the horse's back and runs to her sisters, flitting over the surface of the moon; they look at her with astonishment, and she realizes that they are still not used to seeing her with golden skin and brown hair and hazel eyes.</p><p> </p><p>She avoids looking at the King for as long as she can, hugging her sisters quickly in turn and clutching Zorii to her chest and surveying the Queen and her Five, who sit astride their horses at a distance, observing with evident, albeit bated, interest. </p><p> </p><p>Kylo sticks close behind her, a constant, warm presence at her back; when she turns to look at him, his eyes are pure steel, and are fixed, unmoving, on the Nightkeeper King.</p><p> </p><p>She finally turns to look at her Father. She’s barely able to make out his form in the darkness of the shadows, his hood pulled far over his pale face, his normally-golden eyes two bottomless pits of darkness. Without any show of his powers, he looks small and frail, harmless even. But she knows better.</p><p> </p><p>She pushes Zorii gently behind her, approaches the steps into the castle, and kneels down at the foot of the steps.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey,” someone hisses behind her; she ignores them.</p><p> </p><p>“Father,” she says, trying and failing to quell the trembling in her voice, “I know I’ve upset you. I tried to be an obedient daughter, a good Nightsister. I really did try. But it isn’t who I am; you must see that by now.”</p><p> </p><p>The King remains silent, impassive. Rey sucks in a shaky breath and musters her nerves.</p><p> </p><p>“Zorii is almost old enough to replace me, and you’ll have another daughter in a few hundred years. Please,” she says, wincing at her own words, “let me go. Let me go to Earth. ”</p><p> </p><p>A moment of suffocating silence; then, a low laugh. As the Nightsisters and Skywalkers look on, the laugh bubbles up from a low, grating sound to a hyena-like howl. Rey’s heart drops in her chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Let you go?” The King chortles. “Let you <em> go? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>And then his voice drops suddenly, taking on the pitch of planets grinding along their paths, of galaxies spinning slowly on their axes.</p><p> </p><p>“Never.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo steps up behind her, his presence flaring like the sun’s light in the morning, and places a hand on her shoulder. A soundless wind suddenly whips up around the King; a lightless vortex rises up behind him. His hood is thrown back by the force, and his dark, dead eyes in his pale face are like two windows into the void.</p><p> </p><p>“Bow in defeat to the whims of a child? Relinquish one of my daughters to the <em> light? </em>”</p><p> </p><p>He reaches out a hand and uncurls his wrinkled fingers, and Rey feels the pull of the darkness all of a sudden. She lurches away from the feeling, clawing away from her Father; behind her, Kylo immediately wraps an arm around her waist, anchoring her to him. But the pull of the dark vortex is strong, too strong, and the inclination to submit to it grows—and the King is snarling something in the distance, something about dealing with her sisters next, and she can’t allow that—and she fights with everything she has, but it’s not enough, and Zorii is screaming from somewhere behind her—</p><p> </p><p>—and then someone jumps in front of her on a massive Hellhorse, wielding what looks like a sword of pure light. Rey looks up at the bright figure and is shocked to see the Queen astride her horse, standing between Rey and the Nightkeeper King, brandishing her sword as though she is still a warrior in her prime. The roaring of flame erupts around Rey, and she shies away instinctively, clamping her hands over her ears; the Queen’s horse rears, shrieking.</p><p> </p><p>“You know as well as I do that you cannot afford to lose anymore Nightsisters,” the Queen says, her voice amplified and sharp as a crack of lightning. “You cannot risk throwing the balance between the night and the day so egregiously off. You know that the people of Earth depend on starlight as much as they do sunlight.”</p><p> </p><p>The King, faced with the prospect of fighting the Queen herself, is forced to reconsider his options. He lowers his hand, and Rey feels the tug of the darkness fade; she opens her eyes and sees Kylo’s eyes staring down at her.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey is exhibiting the signs of a newly-minted Skywalker,” the Queen goes on. “And I know that you, Sheev, understand what that means. She may be able to go on weaving starlight with the other Nightsisters, but she will never be able to subsist on only darkness ever again. She will always need to return, sooner or later, to the light.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey’s head still spins from her Father’s attack; she tries to focus on what the Queen is saying. Behind her, she feels other arms encircle around her—Zorii’s slender little arms, and Bazine’s dark ones, and Phasma’s milk-white, muscled ones as well.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve found,” the Queen continues, “that new Skywalkers need exposure to sunlight at least once a year. My recommendation is that Rey descends to Earth once a year to absorb the sun’s light—”</p><p> </p><p>“I cannot allow that,” the King cuts in, his voice cold with anger. “None of my daughters have ever been allowed to travel to Earth, and none of them ever will. All of these foolish, rebellious goings-on are because Rey broke that rule in the first place.”</p><p> </p><p>“The bridge,” Kylo pipes up. The Queen turns astride her horse, her hair like a fiery crown, her eyes too bright to look into.</p><p> </p><p>“You could let her travel halfway across the bridge of sunlight,” Kylo elaborates, pointing at the pinpricks of light that Rey had inadvertently put in place. “It leads into the sun’s light. She could get the sunlight she needs there.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I suppose <em> you </em> would meet her there,” the King sneers. </p><p> </p><p>“There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” Kylo replies defiantly. “This is the only way you’ll get to keep Rey.”</p><p> </p><p>The King stares down at the Skywalkers and the Nightsisters congregated on his doorstep, all staring up at him in defiance. His dead gaze then turns to Rey, and he stares at her for an unbearably long moment. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, he turns his back on them, and, with contemptuous, ambiguous silence, disappears into the darkness of his palace.</p><p> </p><p>The moonrock itself seems to sigh with relief. With a low cry, Rey turns to her sisters and to Kylo and attempts to fling her arms around all of them at once.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” she sobs, to Bazine’s and Zorii’s giddy laughter, and Phasma’s and Kylo’s awkward stutters. “Thank you so much.” She kisses their faces indiscriminately. </p><p> </p><p>Once Phasma finally pries her off, Rey turns and faces the Queen, who has slid down from her horse in the meantime and stands silently beside her steed’s tall flank, looking on in satisfied silence.</p><p> </p><p>“And thank you, too,” Rey says, bowing her head awkwardly, “for helping Kylo reach me in time.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was my pleasure,” the Queen says, her rose-golden cheeks creasing in a warm smile. “Believe me.”</p><p> </p><p>Zorii reaches for Rey’s hand; Rey, overcome with love for her sister, hugs the younger girl tightly. </p><p> </p><p>“Father is going to be furious,” Zorii mutters.</p><p> </p><p>“Probably for at least the next millennium,” Phasma adds flatly.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Rey sighs. “I’m not sure what it’s going to be like over the next few days. He might lock all of us away…”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, we’ve defied him once, now,” Bazine says, her white teeth flashing brilliantly against her dark skin. “We’ll do it again if we must.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re right,” Rey says, allowing herself the luxury of a sliver of optimism.</p><p> </p><p>The Queen’s horse dances a few steps to the side, tossing its head and snorting; it still seems uncomfortable in the dark, cold shadows. The Queen swings herself into her saddle with surprising ease and reins her horse in, nudging it on towards the bridge.</p><p> </p><p>“Take your time,” she says to Kylo, before she urges her giant horse on and rejoins the Five at the foot of the bridge.</p><p> </p><p>“Um,” Phasma says, giving Kylo an awkward glance before herding Bazine and Zorii towards the entrance of the palace. “We’ll just...leave you two alone.”</p><p> </p><p>Rey reluctantly releases little Zorii’s hand, and, feeling as though a rock has settled in her stomach, she turns to face Kylo. The beginnings of a formal, respectful goodbye are working their way up from her chest to her mouth, but Kylo saves her from having to say anything by sweeping her close to his chest. Even though they stand now on barren, shadowed moonrock, the feel of his arms around her and the scent of the heath mingled with his salty skin momentarily send Rey reeling back into memories of her days on Earth. She squeezes her eyes shut, not able to relive those memories just yet, and clings to Kylo’s back, his arms, the threadbare fabric of his shirt.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she croaks. “I wish there was another way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe there will be,” Kylo says a touch fervently, stroking the back of her head with one huge hand. “Maybe one day, when your youngest sister is grown, and another girl has been added to your family—maybe then, the King will let you go.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe,” she whispers into his shoulder, wishing she had the capacity for such hope.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll wait for you,” he promises. “I’ll make my home in the remote areas of the world, away from people who might suspect us for what we are. I’ll prepare a place for us that is hidden away among the plants and animals and streams and sunlight. I’ll wait as long as it takes. And until you can come away with me, I’ll meet you every year on the bridge.”</p><p> </p><p>“You will?” She asks, and her voice sounds abjectly, pitifully helpless—but Kylo cups her cheek with one hand and places a gentle kiss on the cool skin of her faintly golden forehead.</p><p> </p><p>“Every year,” he promises. “I’ll be there.”</p><p> </p><p>She surges up on her toes and captures his mouth with her own. Some of the Five snicker, but the Queen mutters something, and all five young men immediately snap their mouths shut.</p><p> </p><p>Rey kisses him as though it’s the last time she’ll ever kiss him, because a part of her fears that, despite his promises, she may never see him again. She struggles to commit everything to memory—the warm solidness of his chest and arms, the taste of the heath on his breath, the feel of his messy black locks as she runs her fingers through them. He gives her upper lip one last peck, a gesture so arrestingly tender that she turns her face away abruptly. Unfazed, he pulls her back flush against his chest and pushes his nose gently into her hair. </p><p> </p><p>One last nuzzle, one last ghost of his lips along her skin. One last agonizing moment, drawn out for as long as they can possibly manage. And then he’s pulling away, a determined set to his jaw and a hard line between his brows. She watches him with an utterly unguarded expression, and he reaches across the already-growing gap between them to touch her cheek, one last time.</p><p> </p><p>And then he’s turning and striding towards his patiently-waiting horse, and he’s mounting the mare with one sure swing of his leg, and he’s galloping off over the bridge, cresting over the bend in the river of light and surging ahead of the Queen and her Five. Rey stands rooted to the spot, watching as the Skywalkers depart swiftly, with barely a glance backwards; she watches as the dust resettles on the surface of the moon; she watches as darkness and stillness and coldness slowly creep back in and settle around her, like a familiar blanket, an old hurt.</p><p> </p><p>She turns slowly and walks back towards the castle, leaving pristine footprints in the fine dust. As her sisters look on from the doorway, she climbs the steps one at a time, still trying to stretch out this departure, still not quite feeling the full impact of what she’s now become, what her existence will now be.</p><p> </p><p>As she reaches the top landing, Zorii pitters forward and takes Rey’s hand, and Rey allows herself to be led back into the palace.</p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p>The Five take the Queen’s horse and Kylo’s borrowed horse and ride on ahead. The Queen stays behind, lingering at the front door of his hut and taking in his humble situation, her eyes lidded with exhaustion and thoughtfulness. Kylo rummages about his home, his motions leaden and robotic; his mind wanders thousands of miles away, straying over the edge of light into the darkness. When he turns to go out of the hut and let the herd out on a belated roam, he seems to finally notice that his mother is still there. </p><p> </p><p>He stills, and returns her wordless stare for a long moment.</p><p> </p><p>“You are welcome home, whenever you want to end your exile,” she says softly. “I hope you know that.”</p><p> </p><p>“I do know,” he replies, his sigh rattling in his lungs. “But I never belonged at home, and I don’t think I ever will.”</p><p> </p><p>He steps around his mother, who looks lovely and regal and almost comically out of place on his humble doorstep, and walks slowly toward his herd of cows, who low impatiently at the sight of their long-absent herder.</p><p> </p><p>“I think that’s why I’ve become so attached to Rey,” he says quietly as he loosens the fence lock and steps out of the way of the eager cows. “We’re both exiles, outcasts who don’t quite belong anywhere. She understands what it’s like to be pulled in two directions, to be drawn towards both the light and the darkness.”</p><p> </p><p>Leia’s expression is unreadable as she stands silently on the gray, barren rock, her skirts trailing through the tufts of rich green grass. Her skin is luminous, her hair sun-bleached; the curve of her perfect mouth is loving and yet restrained, warm and yet distant, untouchable. And her vibrant brown eyes, set in a face of wrinkled, sun-bronzed skin, are as calculating and loving and ageless as he remembered them to be.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you dearly, my son,” she finally says. “If you have found happiness, then I am happy as well.”</p><p> </p><p>She lowers her eyes for a moment; when she raises them again, they’re bright white spots in her face, and the brightness of her eyes grows steadily until her face is blocked out by light. But even with the blinding light, Kylo can discern the sadness in her expression.</p><p> </p><p>“If you need anything,” she murmurs, her voice like the roar of flame, “you know how to call me.”</p><p> </p><p>Kylo watches as the Queen fades into the vaulted, deep cobalt sky, her silver hair unspooling from its careful coiffure and fanning out like a blanket of clouds, her face eclipsing the sun.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” he whispers as she dissipates into the sky, becoming the clouds and the sun.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just a little left!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the day of their annual reunion, Kylo stands in the middle of the bridge of borrowed sunlight, his heart bounding up into his throat with every beat. They’ve met like this for countless hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands, but he’s never quite been able to conquer the nervousness that consumes him as he waits. He stands on the bridge, his borrowed Hellhorse standing patiently a distance away, and after hours of waiting, of growing increasingly worried that the King has finally locked Rey away permanently, he finally sees her pale, moon-like face and white shift dress appear over the curve of the bridge.</p><p> </p><p>Even at this considerable distance, he can see the smile on her face, the eager flash of her gray eyes as they slowly brighten into a golden hazel, the weightless flutter of her long dark hair. </p><p> </p><p>She dashes down the band of light and flings herself into his arms with a delighted squeal, and he can’t help but laugh as he catches her.</p><p> </p><p>She lifts her chin from his shoulder after a moment and whispers in his ear, breathlessly: “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>He tilts his face to look at her, not understanding her meaning. “Go? What do you mean?”</p><p> </p><p>“Back to Earth,” she says, smiling radiantly.</p><p> </p><p>“Back to…?” He stills.</p><p> </p><p>“Zorii is ready to take my place,” she says, running a gentle, calloused finger along the side of his cheek, “and little Kaydel is adjusting well to life here. Father doesn’t want me to ‘set a bad example’ for her.”</p><p> </p><p>“Preposterous,” Kylo mutters absently, his brain still a couple steps behind. “So...you’re saying…?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” Rey says, nodding enthusiastically; then, she leans away from Kylo for a moment to examine his face, an edge of hesitation creeping into her expression. “Do you not want to...to be with me anymore?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, no. I’ve waited so long for this moment. It’s happening? He’s letting you go?”</p><p> </p><p>“I think so.”</p><p> </p><p>“I,” Kylo stutters, reaching out with quivering fingers to cup the face that he knows so well, loves so dearly. “I’ve moved again, to a place deep in the woods. The hut is small and not particularly comfortable, but there is so much green, as far as the eye can see, and the sunlight through the leaves is so beautiful in the morning, and—”</p><p> </p><p>“It sounds perfect,” Rey says, her eyes bright as she leans up toward him. “Anyplace would sound perfect right now, as long as you’re there with me.”</p><p> </p><p>He drops a kiss on her lips, the first of many. “Always. We’ll always be together.”</p><p> </p><p>“Always?” She murmurs as he dips his head to kiss the bridge of her nose, the top of her cheek, the corner of her brow.</p><p> </p><p>“Always,” he replies, and there’s a raw, utterly vulnerable tenderness in his voice that steals the breath from her lungs.</p><p> </p><p>“Rey!” Someone calls from a distance. Rey turns and sees Zorii standing at the foot of the bridge, waving her arms in farewell. Behind her, Phasma, Bazine, and little Kaydel appear, their faces small and distant and bright, like stars.</p><p> </p><p>Rey lifts her hand and waves back frantically, unbidden tears welling up in her eyes. Her sisters. Would she ever see them again? Perhaps they could visit, once in a while, when the moon is full and the stars are dim…</p><p> </p><p>She feels a tug then, both on her wrist from Kylo’s hand, and from the sun, the earth, the light.</p><p> </p><p>It’s time to go.</p><p> </p><p>She gives her sisters one last wave, one last lingering look. </p><p> </p><p>And then she turns and follows Kylo to his horse.</p><p> </p><p>...</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's that! Happy holidays! I hope y'all are safe and healthy and able to find joy &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>* does a shameless plug dance *</p><ul>
<li>
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797028/chapters/54479338">pressed down, shaken together, running over</a> - modern day AU where Rey and Kylo work at the same company - introspective, slightly dramatic, focus on character development (COMPLETE)</li>
<li>
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23119837/chapters/55319881">furball</a> - modern day, casual magic AU where Kylo has a run-in with a small brown cat and things spiral from there - lighthearted, fluffy, short (COMPLETE)</li>
<li>
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474413/chapters/56279338">the black swan</a> - modern day, sci-fi AU based on the movie <em>Pacific Rim</em> - dark, plot-heavy, equal parts action and introspection/relational development (COMPLETE)</li>
<li>
<a href="#section0001">borrowed sunlight</a> - vaguely historical fantasy/mythological AU based on the Chinese myth <em>The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl</em> - fluffy and romantic, a little awkward, sometimes a little dark. Beware: science is thrown to the wind! (COMPLETE)</li>
<li>
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169441/chapters/66356758">when i look at you</a> - Harry Potter AU where Rey and Ben meet during their school years, and then again a few years later - dark and angsty (COMPLETE)</li>
<li>
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29406645/chapters/72242856">exultant</a> - 1950s AU with a chronically lying, burgling Rey whose employment by Kylo Ren proves to be life-changing - dark, psychological, suspenseful</li>
</ul></blockquote></div></div>
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